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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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I.Irs.   Ancelita  Dennis 


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STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 


Books  by  Prof.  John  C.  Van  Dyke 


ART    FOR    ARTS   SAKE 

University  Lectures  on  the  Technical  Beauties  of  Paint- 
ing.    With  Z4  Illustrations.     i2mo.     $1.50. 

THE   MEANING  OF   PICTURES 

University  Lectures  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New 
York.     With  51  Illustrations.     i2mo.     $1.23  net. 

STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

An  Introduction  to  the  Famous  Galleries.  With  40  Il- 
lustrations.    i2mo.     $1.25  net. 

TEXT   BOOK   OF  THE   HISTORY   OF   PAINTING 
With  1 10  Illustrations.     i2nio.     $i.so. 

OLD   DUTCH    AND    FLEMISH    MASTERS 

With  Timothy  Cole's  Wood-engravings.  Superroyal 
8vo.     $7.50. 

OLD   ENGLISH   MASTERS 

With  Timothy  Cole's  Wood-engravings.  Superroyal 
8vo.     $8.00. 

MODERN   FRENCH    MASTERS 

Written  by  American  artists  and  edited  by  Professor 
Van  Dyke.  With  66  full-page  Illustrations.  Super- 
royal 8vo.     $10.00. 

NATURE   FOR   ITS   OWN   SAKE 

First  Studies  in  Natural  Appearances.  With  Portrait. 
i2mo.     $1.50. 

THE   DESERT 

Further  Studies  In  Natural  Appearances.  With  Frontis- 
piece.    i2mo.     $1.25  net. 

THE   OPAL   SEA 

Continued  Studies  in  Impressions  and  Appearances. 
With  Frontispiece.     i2mo.     $1.25  net. 


CORREGGIO  C),    St.   Sebastian.     Vi^r.r.a  Gallery. 


STUDIES  IN  PICTURES 


AW  INTRODUCTION  TO   THE  FAMOUS 
GALLERIES 


BY 


JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE 

AUTHOR  OF    "AKT   FOR   ART'S  SAKE,"    "THE   MEANING 

OF  PICTURES,"    "a   history   OF   PAINTING," 

"old   ENGLISH   MASTERS,"    ETC. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1907 


t  J  J  * 

J    *  *  » 

i    i  *  »  » 

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Copyright,  1907,  by 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March.  1907 


TROW  omecTonv 

PBINTIHO  AND   lOOrniNOINa  COHPANV 
New    YO«K 


NV 


C^v^/^S 


PREFACE 

The  masterpieces  of  painting  need  no  apologies; 
if  they  did  they  would  not  be  masterpieces.  Some- 
times, however,  a  word  of  explanation  puts  them  in 
a  better  light.  Gallery  visitors  are  disposed  to  jump 
at  conclusions  about  them,  to  exalt  or  debase  them  in 
advance  of  the  evidence.  That  is  why  so  many 
tourists  return  from  Europe  each  season  with  mixed 
or  violent  opinions  about  the  old  masters.  They  have 
not  seen  truly  nor  comprehended  adequately  nor 
judged  justly.  For  them,  or  for  the  newer  and 
younger  flight  that  goes  over  seas  each  summer  to 
Hudy  art,  possibly  this  little  volume  may  prove  of 
service.  It  is  not  put  forth  as  the  final  word ;  in  fact, 
it  is  only  the  first  word — something  designed  to  in- 
troduce the  subject  to  further  consideration. 

J.  C.  V.  D. 

Rutgers  College, 
February,  1907. 


S;i828 


CONTENTS 


PART    I 

Chapter  I.  Old  Masters  Out  of  Place. — The  modem  gallery — 
Painting  for  exhibition — Galleries  unknown  to  the  old  masters — - 
Where  the  old  pictures  were  shown — How  removed  from,  original 
settings  in  church,  chapel,  and  palace — Replacing  in  modern  gal- 
leries— Distortion  of  purpose  thereby — How  pictures  are  hung 
in  a  gallery — Hurt  by  neighboring  pictures — Casting  of  reflec- 
tions— Optical  mixture  and  confusion  thereby — Too  much  com- 
pany— Weariness  of  the  eye  and  the  imagination — Pictures  in 
their  original  settings — Distorted  by  gold  frames — Bad  framing 
— Distortions  of  lighting — Gallery  light  never  contemplated  by 
the  old  masters — The  famous  galleries  badly  lighted — The  Sis- 
tine  Madonna — Insufficient  distance  at  which  large  pictures  are 
seen — Rubens — The  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Museum,  Berlin — The 
Louvre — Italian  ceiling  pieces — The  old  pictures  rightly  planned 
and  painted  for  their  original  places 3 

Chapter  II.  Pictures  Ruined,  Restored,  and  Repainted. — State 
of  preservation  of  gallery  pictures — Many  almost  destroyed  by 
time  and  bad  restoration — The  "Mona  Lisa  " — The  "Assumption" 
by  Titian — Titian's  "Presentation"  and  Rembrandt's  "Night 
Watch" — Old  masters  not  always  what  they  seem — Correggio's 
"Holy  Night"  much  injured — The  reasons  for  restoration — 
Cleaning  of  pictures — Safe  and  unsafe  methods — Results  of  un- 
safe cleaning — Use  of  alcohol  and  its  results — Repainting  and 
toning — Rubbing  of  painted  surface  is  injurious — Necessity  for 
restoration — Destruction  of  pictures  by  time — Relining  and  re- 
painting— Not  all  old  pictures  restored — The  smaller  ones  better 
preserved  than  the  larger — Bad  care  of  pictures  in  old  galleries 
— Detecting   repainting — Painters'   experiments   cause   of   much 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

trouble — Mediums  and  fugitive  colors — Changes  in  pictures 
through  fugitive  colors — Italian  and  English  pictures  bleached — 
Turner's  pictures — liitumen  and  black  underbasing — Many  things 
that  may  distort  the  painter's  original  meaning IG 

Chapter  III.  False  Attributions,  Copies,  Forgeries. — Cele- 
brated names  on  inferior  canvases — Names  in  gallery  catalogues 
— Their  attractive  qualities — The  thirteen  Raphaels  in  the  Louvre 
— Only  five  of  them  genuine — Raphael's  portrait  of  himself — Its 
artistic  value — Correggio's  "Reading  Magdalene"  at  Dresden — 
Its  fate — Velasquez  in  American  galleries — Good  pictures  under 
wrong  names — Falsifying  art  history — Old  copies  as  originals  or 
replicas — How  they  were  made  in  England — Copies  of  Rej'uolds, 
Leonardo,  Raphael — Copies  of  V'elasquez's  "Philip" — Detecting 
the  copy — Copies  by  first-rate  artists — School  pieces — How  they 
are  painted — The  Bellini  workshop — Raphael's  helpers — Detect^ 
ing  the  school  piece — The  forgery  in  Europe  and  America — De- 
tecting the  forgery — Guides  to  follow  in  the  matter  of  attribu- 
tions       29 

Chapter  IV.  Themes  of  the  Masters. — What  pictures  mean — 
The  old  church  pictures — Mantegna's  "Madonna  of  the  Victory" 
— Religion  and  art  to  believing  Italians — Absence  of  church 
meaning  to  us — Names  and  symbolism  not  art — Palma  Vecchio'a 
"St.  Barbara" — Titian's  "Sacred  and  Profane  Love"  and  Bot- 
ticelli's "Spring"  equally  meaningless  to  u.s — What  they  are 
as  art — The  figures,  costumes,  colors,  workmanship — Illustration 
and  history  as  art — How  art  gives  history — Botticelli's  "  Adora- 
tion" with  its  Medici  portraits — Tintoretto's  "Marriage  in  Cana" 
— Old  masters  painted  their  own  age  and  people — Sacred  and 
classic  characters  in  Italian  garb — .Anachronisms  of  dress  and 
type — Archipological  vs.  pictorial  truth — Pre-Raphaelites  and 
Alma-Tademas — Hypercritical  exactions — The  value  of  painting 
what  is  seen — Carpaccio — Modern  historical  art — Value  of  a  na- 
tion's art — Value  of  art  independent  of  name — Portraits  of  un- 
known men  and  women — Fine  types,  profound  truth,  grace, 
charm,  power,  splendor,  earnestness,  honesty  are  pictorial  qual- 
ities to  be  admired — Sincerity  and  "feeling"  of  the  old  mas- 
ters       43 


CONTENTS  ix 

Chapter  V.  Workmanship  of  the  Old  Masters. — Subjects  be- 
come obsolete,  but  skill  of  artist  lives — Apprenticeship  under  the 
Italian  guilds — Work  in  the  hottega — Painting  an  "Annunciation" 
■ — Preparation  from  the  decorative  side — The  materials,  compo- 
sition, workmanship  required — Something  beautiful  as  decora- 
tion— Benozzo  Gozzoli  and  the  fresco  in  Riccardi  palace — Beauty 
of  the  work — The  Byzantine  and  Romanesque  panels — The 
Vivarini  at  Murano — Botticelli's  "Spring"  again — Its  decorative 
charm — Drawing  and  painting  the  figure  with  Raphael  and 
Michael  Angelo — Leonardo's  "sfumato" — Giorgione  and  Cor- 
reggio  —  Rembrandt's  light-and-shade  —  The  Venetian  color — 
The.  decorative  aim  with  the  Dutch,  Flemish,  and  English — Mr. 
Sargent's  Boston  decorations — Decorative  beauty  with  the  Im- 
pressionists— The  artist's  point  of  view  to  be  considered.  ...      55 


PART   II 

Chapter  VI.  Figure  Painting. — Kinds  of  subjects  painted — 
Figure  pieces,  historical  canvases,  portraits,  genre  painting,  land- 
scape, still-life,  marines — The  human  interest — Predominance  of 
the  figure  piece — The  narrative  or  story  part  of  pictures  not  dealt 
with — Character  in  the  figure — Drawing  the  hand — The  "Delphic 
Sibyl"  by  Michael  Angelo — The  hands  of  the  "Mona  Lisa" — 
Kneller  and  Van  Dyck  hands — Van  der  Heist's  hands — Mr.  Sargent 
and  the  moderns — Drawing  the  foot  with  the  ancients  and  mod- 
erns— Bouguereau's  foot  compared  with  Millet's — The  "Gleaners" 
and  the  "Man  with  a  Hoe" — Drawing  by  Legros,  Courbet, 
Daumier,  Frans  Hals,  Velasquez — Truth  of  character  with  the 
Dutchmen — Beauty  of  the  ugly  vs.  beauty  of  the  comely— Peas- 
ants and  princes  in  art — Clothes  and  types — Ideal  figures  and 
faces — Pure  decorative  painting  by  Baudry  and  others 71 

Chapter]  VII.  Portrait-Painting. — Scope  of  portraiture — 
Supposed  origin  of  portrait-painting — Earliest  portraits  in  Egypt 
and  Assyria — -The  portrait  in  Greece — The  ideal  and  iconic  por- 
traits— Realistic  portraiture  in  Rome  and  in  Italy — What  the 
portrait  should  reveal — The  surface  portrait — The  physical  life 


X  CONTENTS 

portrait — The  character  portrait — Painting  of  character — The  ar- 
tist's view  of  reading  character  in  or  out  of  faces — What  the 
painter  sees — The  face  as  an  index  of  character — How  a  man's 
thoughts  or  occupation  cliango  his  physique — The  painter  us  an 
expert  in  physiognomy — The  abnormal  vision — Emphasis  of  feat- 
ures and  caricature— Tlip  small  vx.  the  large  view — Tlie  great 
portrait  painters — The  high  rank  of  portraiture — Nothing  better 
in  art — The  "ugly"  and  the  "handsome"  in  faces — Heauty  in 
character — Costumes  and  their  limitations  in  portraiture — Main- 
taining the  proper  balance — Titian  and  Velasiiucz S5 

Chapter  VIII.  Genre  Painting. — The  small  figure  in  art- 
Difference  between  historical  and  genre  painting — Definition  of 
genre — What  it  includes — Subordination  of  the  figures  to  the 
general  effect — Commonplace  and  intimate  life  on  canvas — Genre 
implies  something  done  from  the  model — Quite  the  opposite  of 
classic  or  historic  painting — Painters'  views  aboiit  it — Genre 
painting  deals  with  social  life  and  is  history — Opportunity  for 
sentiment  and  imagination — But  skill  of  artist  in  color,  textures, 
light,  and  handling  usually  predominant — Art  not  judged  by 
size — Painting  of  familiar  life  not  a  new  thing — Known  in  Greece 
and  Rome — The  Venetian,  Bassani — The  Dutchmen  Brouwer, 
Steen,  Terburg,  De  Hooch,  Teniers — F.nglish  genre  painters,  Ho- 
garth, Wilkie,  Morland — Watteau,  Pater,  Chardin,  Fragonard — 
Oriental  genre,  Decamps,  Marilhat,  Fromentin — Peasant  genre  of 
Millet  and  Breton — Military  genre  of  Meissonier — Impressionist 
genre — Modern  use — Painting  of  still-life,  flowers,  china,  dead 
game — Beauty  of  the  familiar  things 99 

CnAPTER  IX.  The  Animal  in  Art. — Place  of  the  animal  in 
painting — Study  of  animal  life — Fitness  of  the  theme  for  art — 
Domestic  and  wild  animals — Egyptian  and  Assyrian  practice — 
Excellence  of  Assyrian  lions,  dogs,  horses,  goats — The  Greeks 
and  their  horses — The  animal  in  early  Christian  art — Early  Re- 
naissance horses  and  cattle — The  Flemish  and  Dutch  painters  of 
animals — Paul  Potter,  Cuyp,  lierchem,  their  limitations— Oudry 
and  Desportes — Tlie  animal  with  the  Romanticists — Delacroix, 
G<5ricault,  Barv'e — Delacroix's  tigers — Decamps  and  Fromentin 
— Oriental    camels   and  horses — Charact<T  of    the   animals — Two 


CONTENTS  XI 

kinds  of  character — Landseer  and  his  false  characterization  of 
the  dog — Velasquez  and  the  true  canine  character — Modern  cattle 
painters,  Troyon,  Mols,  Van  Marcko,  Rosa  Bonheur — Success  in 
animal  painting — ^MiUet,  Jacque,  Mauve,  Segantini  with  sheep — 
Bird  painters,  Audubon,  Bull,  Liljefors — Decorative  motive — 
Animals  as  form  and  color — Place  of  animals  in  art Ill 

Chapter  X.  Landscape  and  Marine  Painting. — Knowledge 
of  landscape  limited  with  early  men — Landscape  art,  the  latest 
word — -Symbolism  of  early  work — Giotto  and  the  I^orenzetti — 
Early  Renaissance  work — Landscape  in  Italy  subordinate  to  the 
figures — Used  as  a  background — Raphael  and  Leonardo — The 
Venetians,  Giorgione  and  Titian — Lanilscape  gained  in  impor- 
tance with  Claude  Lorraine  and  Poussin — The  Classic  Arcadia — 
The  Claude-Poussin  tradition — The  landscape  imder  Classicism 
at  time  of  French  Revolution — Revolt  against  this  convention — 
The  Romantic  landscape  another  distortion — Absence  of  senti- 
ment in  nature — Passing  of  both  Classic  and  Romantic  concep- 
tions— The  Fontainebleau-Barbizon  School — How  it  originated — 
What  it  aspired  to — What  it  attained — Rousseau,  Corot,  Diaz, 
Dupr^,  Daubigny — Their  feeling  and  sentiinent — The  true  poe- 
try of  landscape  art — The  Impressionists  and  their  point  of  view 
— Monet,  Sisley,  Pissarro — What  Impressionism  has  done — Land- 
scape in  France  and  elsewhere — Marine  painting — Its  history — 
The  present  day  painters  of  the  sea — Limitations  of  the  marine 
— Limitations  of  all  art 124 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


CoRREGGio  (?)  St.  Sebastian 


Frontispiece 


I.  Ghirlandajo,  Last  Supper 
II.  Paolo  Veronese  (?)  Industry    . 

III.  Titian,  La  Bella 

IV.  P.  Veronese  (?)  Triumph  of  Mordecai 
V.  Titian,  Presentation  of  the  Virgin 

VI.  Crivelli,  Madonna  and  Child    . 
VII.  Tiepolo,  Way  to  Calvary    . 
VIII.  Tintoretto,  Adam  and  Eve. 
IX.  Velasquez  (?)  Unknown  Man     . 
X.  Sebastiano  del  Piombo,  Portrait 
XL  Botticelli  (?)  Madonna,  Child  and  St.  John 
XII.  PiERo  della  Francesca  (?)  Unknown  Lady 

XIII.  Botticelli,  Adoration  of  the  Magi 

XIV.  Carpaccio,  St.  Ursula   and  Prince  of  Eng 

land  (Detail) 

XV.  Tintoretto,  Finding  Body  of  St.  Mark  . 
XVI.  Ghirlandajo,  Birth  of  Virgin   . 
XVII.  GozzoLi,  Head  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  (Detail 

XVIII.  VivARiNi,  Altar-piece 

XIX.  ViVARiNi,  Altar-piece  (Detail)  . 

xiii 


PAGE 

4 
8 
10 
14 
16 
20 
24 
28 
30 
34 
36 
40 
44 

46 
50 
52 
56 
60 
64 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIO.N.S 

PAOE 

XX.  Botticelli,  Spring  (Detail)         ...  66 

XXI.  Millet,  Man  with  Hoe 72 

XXII.  Palma  Vecchio,  Holy  Family      ...  76 

XXIII.  ToRBiDO,  Old  Woman 80 

XXIV.  MuRiLLo,  Madonna  and  Child      ...  82 
XXV.  Velasquez,  Infanta  Maria  Theresa  .       .  86 

XXVI.  Titian,  Young  Englishman  ....     88 

XXVII.  Rembrandt,  Elizabeth  Bas  ....     92 

XXVIII.  PiERo    della    Francesca    (?)    Unknown 

Lady 96 

XXIX.  PiETER  DE  Hooch,  Interior  ....  100 

XXX.  MoRLAND,  The  Halt 102 

XXXI.  Meissonier,  The  Sergeant's  Portrait      .  106 

XXXII.  Renoir,  Young  Girls 110 

XXXIII.  Troyon,  Cattle  and  Sheep  .       .       .       .114 

XXXIV.  Jacque,  Sheep US 

XXXV.  Homer,  Winter 122 

XXXVI.  Perugino,  Madonna  and  St.  Bernard  (De- 
tail)         126 

XXXVII.  Claude  Lorraine,  Landscape      .        .        .128 

XXXVIII.  CoROT,  Landscape KiO 

XXXIX.  Homer,  Moonlight  on  Maine  Coast  .        .   131 


STUDIES    IN   PICTURES 

PART  I 


STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

CHAPTER    I 
OLD  MASTERS  OUT  OF  PLACE 

A  GALLERY,  as  any  dictionary  will  tell  us,  is  "a 
room  or  building  used  for  the  display  of  works  of 
art " ;  and  at  the  present  time  it  is  about  the  only 
place  where  works  of  art  are  publicly  exhibited. 
There  the  painter  sends  his  product  for  exposition 
and  sale,  and  there  at  stated  intervals  the  public  is 
invited  to  come  and  see  and  study.  Knowing  before- 
hand where  his  picture  is  to  be  shown,  the  painter, 
wisely  enough,  paints  it  with  an  eye  to  the  size  of 
the  rooms,  the  quality  of  the  gallery  light,  and  per- 
haps the  tint  of  the  walls  that  make  up  the  back- 
ground. Knowing,  again,  the  company  his  picture 
will  keep  he  perhaps  plans  that  it  shall  not  be  lost 
to  view  for  want  of  vivid  hues  or  startling  theme. 
For  the  rest  he  trusts  the  hanging  committee  will 
not  place  it  over  a  door  or  in  a  corner  or  behind  a 
piece  of  sculpture.  His  product  is  what  is  called 
a  "  gallery  picture,"  though  it  does  not  show  to  the 
best  advantage  in  a  gallery.     No  picture  ever  does, 

3 


4  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

It  is  not,  however,  hopelessly  distuiled  by  its  sur- 
roundings. The  painter  knew  what  his  picture  was 
to  meet  and  made  preparation  accordingly. 

Not  so  the  old  master,  lie  never  dreamed  of  such 
a  gathering  place  for  jjictures  as  a  gallery;  and  if 
you  should  infer  from  modern  custom  that  the  great 
galleries  of  Europe,  like  the  Louvre,  the  Ullizi,  and 
the  Hermitage,  with  their  pictures  of  many  schools, 
were  designed  for  exhibition  purposes,  and  that  the 
Titians,  Eembrandts,  and  llolbeins  sent  their  works 
there  for  display,  you  would  be  in  grave  error.  The 
galleries  came  into  existence  long  after  the  painters 
had  passed  away;  and  the  pictures  were  brought 
there  from  many  lands  and  huddled  together  in 
large  rooms  as  much  for  safe  keeping  as  for  exhibi- 
tion. The  old  master  never  thought  for  a  moment 
that  the  work  of  his  hand  and  brain  would  be  taken 
from  its  original  setting  and  hung  up  with  numl)er 
and  label  as  a  relic  in  a  foreign  museum.  There 
were  no  galleries  in  his  day,  and  ho  never  painted 
any  spectacular  pictures  for  a  Salon,  with  the  thought 
that  it  might  bo  bought  by  the  state  for  a  gallery 
of  the  Luxembourg.  His  Crucifixion,  let  us  say,  was 
done  for  the  high  altar  of  S.  Giovanni  Evangelista. 
his  Madonna  and  Child  for  the  Strozzi  Chaj)el,  the 
half-nude  portrait  of  the  Duchess  as  Diana  was 
painted  for  the  Duke's  private  cabinet,  and  the  little 
Cupid  and  P.syche,  now  framed  in  heavy  gold  bor- 
derings,  was  one  of   the  panels   in  a  clothes  chestj 


< 


5 

X 
C5 


OLD   MASTERS  OUT  OF   PLACE  5 

perhaps  painted  and  given  to  Domenico's  daughter 
on  her  wedding  day.  Each  picture  that  went  from 
his  workshop  passed  to  the  place  for  which  it  was 
designed,  and  each  picture  in  its  place  fulfilled  its 
purpose,  and  had  a  reason  for  existence.  Could 
he  foresee  the  passing  of  dukes  and  duchies,  the  decay 
of  churches,  the  disintegration  of  families,  and  even 
of  nations?  Could  he  realize  that  conquerors  would 
come,  some  with  a  strong  hand,  and  some  with  tempt- 
ing gold,  to  wrench  his  pictures  from  their  places 
and  carry  them  north  of  the  Alps  to  be  immured  in 
galleries  ? 

Perhaps  you  will  think  it  of  no  importance  where 
the  pictures  are  placed,  and  at  least  they  are  well 
preserved  in  the  modern  galleries.  Yes;  they  are 
preserved  there  very  much  as  the  mummy  of  the 
great  Eameses  is  preserved  in  the  Boulak  Museum 
— that  is,  with  varnish  and  camphor  balls  in  a  glass 
case.  But  perhaps  the  mummy  of  Eameses  would  be 
more  appropriately  placed  in  its  rock-cut  tomb  in 
the  Libyan  Mountains,  and  perhaps  the  "  Family  of 
Darius,"  with  its  portraits  of  the  Pisani  by  Paolo 
Veronese,  would  be  seen  to  better  advantage  were  it 
once  more  in  the  Pisani  palace,  instead  of  hanging, 
with  other  "  specimens,"  on  a  wall  of  the  National 
Gallery  in  the  fog  and  smoke  of  London.  But  of 
this  distortion  of  purpose  and  meaning  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  hereafter.  Just  now  I  wish  to  call 
your  attention  to  some  of  the  more  material  injuries 


6  STUDIES   I\    PICTURES 

that  may  befall  the  work  of  art  when  removed  from 
its  setting  and  brought  together  with  others  in  the 
gallery — injuries  that  may  affect  your  estimate  of 
the  work,  and  with  which  you  should  not  fail  to 
reckon. 

You  know  that  in  the  European  galleries  pictures 
are  sometimes  classified  by  schools  or  countries,  but 
seldom,  if  ever,  according  to  the  medium  in  which 
they  are  painted,  the  manner  of  their  painting,  or 
their  schemes  of  color.  They  are  strewn  along  the 
walls  in  lines  or  windrows  with  a  regard  only  for 
their  size  and  their  ability  to  fit  in  certain  spaces. 
WTiat  happens?  Why  perhaps  a  gilded  altar-piece 
with  bright  colors  by  Crivelli  is  placed  beside  a  dull 
panel  by  Jacopo  Bellini,  making  the  Bellini  look 
washed  out  and  thin ;  or  a  robust^Vcl^squez  elbows  a 
weak  Alurillo.  emphasizing  the  weakness  and  the 
pallor  of  the  latter.  Any  modern  artist  who  sends 
work  to  public  exhibitions  knows  what  it  means  to 
have  a  delicate  low-keyed  picture  hang  beside  a  Bes- 
nard  or  a  "Renoir  (Plate  32).  Even  the  best  of 
Corots  will  look  "  sweet  "  when  placed  on  the  wall 
next  to  a  Claude  Monet.  When  the  sun  is  in  the  sky 
we  are  not  conscious  of  the  stars;  and  when  our  eyes 
are  dazzled  with  a  blaze  of  high  light  and  color  from 
some  bright-keyed  picture  we  are  not  in  a  condition 
fo  appreciate  the  half-tones  of  the  canvas  next  it. 

Besides,  there  is  a  more  serious  disturl)ance  that 
may  take  place  through  the  proximity  of  pictures 


OLD  MASTERS  OUT  OF   PLACE  7 

one  to  another  by  their  easting  reflections  one  upon 
another.  Bright  canvases  have  a  disagreeable  way 
of  imposing  suffusions  of  their  own  color  upon  their 
neighbors.  A  fire-red  picture  by  Jordaens  will  not 
help  a  blue-lighted  interior  by  Van  der  Meer  of  Delft, 
nor  will  a  pink-and-moss-green  Boucher  be  improved 
by  the  close  presence  of  a  bright-hued  Delacroix. 
Each  will  confuse  the  color  scheme  of  the  other,  and 
help  distort  the  original  meaning. 

And  again,  there  may  be  a  further  confusion 
through  what  is  called  optical  mixture — that  is,  con- 
fusion in  your  eye  which  apparently  confuses  the 
picture.  If  you  gaze  at  a  red  spot  for  a  few  mo- 
ments and  then  look  at  a  white  paper,  you  will  see 
spots  of  green.  After  looking  at  blue  for  a  minute 
or  more  other  objects  will  appear  preternaturally 
yellow;  and  after  green  they  look  preternaturally 
red.  This  is  fact,  not  fancy;  and  is  scientifically 
explained  by  the  disposition  of  the  fatigued  eye  to  see 
the  complementary  color.  The  practical  result  of 
this  in  a  gallery  might  be  that  when  you  have  pon- 
dered over  the  bright  golden-yellows  of  Eubens  for 
ten  minutes,  you  may  find  a  warm  gray  Eembrandt 
next  it  looking  cold  and  blue;  and  after  a  red  pic- 
ture by  Poussin  you  may  think  a  white  Le  Nain  un- 
necessarily green.  The  first  injury,  then,  that  befalls 
the  old  master  is  that  he  is  found  in  ..uncongenial 
eom.paJiy  and  suffers  from  the  juxtaposition  of  other 
canvases. 


8  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

And  in  any  event  there  is  always  loo  much  com- 
pany. The  eye  and  the  imagination  grow  \i:£ary  with 
seeing  many  pictures,  and  fail  to  appreciate  truly  any 
one  of  them.  Have  you  never  noticed  how  distin- 
guished a  picture  may  look  in  a  painter's  studio,  and 
bow  commonplace  the  same  picture  may  appear  when 
hung  with  others  in  an  exhiljition?  Have  you,  when 
in  Venice,  stepped  in  at  the  side  door  of  S.  Maria 
Formosa  to  study  the  "  St.  Barbara "  of  Pal  ma 
Vecchio  on  its  stone  altar?  How  superbly  it  looks 
standing  there  in  the  place  for  which  it  was  painted, 
with  no  other  pictures  near  to  distract  the  attention, 
save  its  accompanying  saints !  And  how  beautiful 
in  that  little  chapel  of  the  Badia  at  Florence  is  the 
"  Vision  of  St.  Bernard  "  by  Filippino !  People  agree 
in  calling  it  Filippino's  masterpiece;  and  so  they 
style  the  "St.  Barbara"  by  Pal  ma;  but  I  wonder 
how  much  those  judgments  have  been  influenced  by 
seeing  the  pictures  alone  and  in  their  original  set- 
tings. How  long  would  they  hold  their  exalted  rank 
if  placed  in  the  Pitti  or  the  Accademia  at  Venice? 
There  they  would  have  to  fight  for  your  attention; 
and  there  you  might  pass  by  the  Filippino,  just  as 
you  would  a  tender  Perugino,  because  perhaps  some 
more  powerful  conception  by  Signorelli  or  Piero 
della  Francesca  hung  near  it. 

And  have  you  ever  thought  of  all  these  pictures 
being  in  strait  jackets,  distorted  again,  perhaps 
dislocated,    by   that   gallery    jiroperty   called   a   gold 


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OLD  MASTERS  OUT  OF  PLACE  9 

frame?  And  the  frames  are  generally  of  bright 
gold,  so  bright  that  they  are  obtrusive.  You  keep 
seeing  them,  feeling  their  presence.  This  is  a  dis- 
turbance again,  because  in  good  framing  one  should 
look  through-4he  frame  and  not  at  it.  It  is  at  best 
merely  a  setting  for  the  picture  and  you  should  not 
be  made  violently  aware  of  its  existence.  The  Dres- 
den Gallery  is  better  off  in  this  respect  than  any  other 
in  Europe,  because  its  frames  are  old,  dull,  and  keep 
their  place.  But  the  gold  frame  is,  at  best,  only  a 
relic  borrowed  from  the  old  Italian  altar-piece;  and 
while  it  helps  some  pictures,  it  almost  destroys  others. 
The  dark  portraits  by  a  Eembrandt,  a  Titian,  a 
Velasquez  would  perhaps  appear  to  greater  advan- 
tage if  framed  in  ebony;  a  blue-green  Boucher, 
originally  set  in  a  wall  panel  and  surrounded  by 
tapestries,  would  perhaps  gain  by  a  blue-green  fram- 
ing of  Japanese  silk ;  and  many  a  pale  Tiepolo  would 
look  the  better  for  a  setting  of  ivory-white  and  dull 
gold.  But  gallery  tradition  has  hung  and  hanged 
them  all  in  bright  golden  fetters — a  mode  of  execu- 
tion never  contemplated  by  their  producers.  Then 
there  is  the  additional  abomination  of  coats  of  var- 
nish, added  in  the  restoring  room,  which  produce 
spots  and  glares  of  light  on  the  surface.  Perhaps 
there  is  still  more  distortion  in  the  shape  of  a  glass 
over  the  picture,  in  which  you  see  your  own  reflection 
and  almost  anything  else  you  please  except  the  pic- 
ture itself. 


10  STUDIES   1\    PICTURES 

And  again  liavo  you  over  paused  in  your  admira- 
tion or  condemnation  of  these  old  pictures  to  tli ink- 
that  not  one  of  them  was  painted  for  the  light  under 
wliich  you  see  it?  Some  M'cre  done  for  church 
chapels;  some  for  convent  cells  as  Ghirlandajo's 
"Last  Supper"  (Plate  1);  some  for  palace  walls 
as  the  "Industry"  (Plate  2)  attributed  to  Paolo 
A^'eronese;  some  for  hall  and  boudoir;  but  all  were 
done  for  the  dimly  lighted  buildings  of  three  or  four 
hundred  years  ago.  Do  you  wonder,  then,  that  they 
perhaps  blink  a  little  under  the  strong  sky-lights  of 
the  Louvre,  or  look  somewhat  dull  and  mournful 
pushed  into  the  little  pocket  cabinets  of  the  Brera? 

The  famous  pictures  of  the  Pitti  are  seen  only  by 
the  light  of  side  windows,  and  in  consequence  many 
a  one  has  never  been  seen  properly.  The  manage- 
ment of  the  gallery  has  done  its  best  to  obviate  the 
diiliculty  by  having  the  larger  pictures  hung  on 
hinges  so  that  they  may  be  swung  in  or  out  to  catch 
the  light  from  the  windows;  but  nothing  seems  to 
change  the  directness  of  the  light — its  want  of  diffu- 
sion. It  is  hopelessly  bad  for  gallery  purposes.  That 
portrait  of  the  so-called  "Young  Englishman" — 
supposed  to  be  the  Duko  of  Xorfolk — (]*Iate  2C>),  by 
Titian,  is  without  doubt  one  of  his  finest  canvases, 
and  as  noble  a  portrait  as  ever  painter  produced; 
but  it  cannot  he  seen  to  advantage  in  its  room  in  the 
Pitti.  Pocontly  it  has  been  placed  upon  an  easel  and 
pushed  into  a  window  recess  where  the  light  is  even 


Ill,— TITIAN,  La  Bella  (Duchess  of  Urbino).     Pitti,   Florence. 


OLD  MASTERS  OUT  OF   PLACE  11 

more  disastrous  than  bclorc.  This  is  equally  true 
of  Titian's  "La  Bella"  (Plate  3),  of  the  splendid 
altarpicces  by  Andrea  del  Sarto,  the  great  canvases 
by  Fra  Bartolommeo  and  Perugino,  and  many  a 
smaller  work  by  Eaphael  that  hangs  there. 

The  "  Sistine  Madonna "  at  Dresden  is  another 
illustration  to  the  point.  It  was  executed,  as  you 
know,  for  the  church  of  San  Sisto  in  Piacenza  and 
painted  to  be  seen  by  the  dim  light  falling  upon  the 
high  altar.  Perhaps  for  that  very  reason  it  was  "  laid 
in  "  with  rather  high,  primary  tones  of  color  that  it 
might  be  seen  clearly  from  all  parts  of  the  church. 
It  is  now  in  a  small  room  of  the  Dresden  Gallery 
where  it  is  seen  only  by  the  glaring  light  from  a 
side  window;  and  people  standing  within  ten  feet 
of  it  wonder  that  the  color  is  not  more  "  subtle,"  as 
with  Whistler,  and  the  brush  work  more  like  the 
handling  of  Velasquez  and  Manet!  Even  artists  of 
high  rank  in  our  own  day,  being  quite  unable  to  make 
allowance  for  the  distortion  of  its  meaning,  placing, 
and  lighting,  have  referred  to  it  as  "  a  shoddy  piece 
of  commercialism."  True  enough  it  does  not  in 
its  present  place  look  the  great  masterpiece  people 
have  chosen  to  think  it;  nor  did  Achilles  look  the 
great  hero  to  Ulysses  when  seen  in  the  drear  gloom 
of  Tartarus ;  but  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  Achilles 
before  the  walls  of  Troy  was  far  from  being  the  pale 
shade  that  Ulysses  saw  in  the  nether  world,  and  I  am 
sure  that  Raphael's  altar-piece  in  the  church  of  San 


12  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

Sisto  was  a  very  difforeut  ihing  Trom  the  "  Sistiue 
Madonna  "  in  the  Dresden  Gallery. 

More  fatal  perlia])s  in  its  results  than  the  distor- 
tion caused  by  conflicting  lights  is  the  false  impres- 
sion created  by  the  insufficient  distance  at  which  we 
see  these  gallery  pictures.  A  painter  always,  even 
to  this  day,  scales  his  picture,  adapts  his  composition, 
regulates  the  size  of  his  figures,  and  paints  broadly 
or  minutely  in  exact  conformity  to  the  distance  at 
which  the  canvas  is  to  be  seen.  If  you  cannot  see 
it  at  the  distance  the  painter  intended  you  should 
see  it,  then  you  are  missing  his  point  of  view,  and 
are  out  of  focus.  And  for  putting  you  out  of  focus 
I  know  of  nothing  more  effective  than  the  long,  nar- 
row galleries  of  the  Louvre  or  the  Prado  at  ^ladrid. 
There  has  always  been  a  gallery  mania  for  hanging 
large  allegorical  or  decorative  pictures  in  just  such 
places,  and  more  than  all  others  these  are  the  ones 
lliat  should  not  be  hung  there. 

Nothing  could  illustrate  this  better  than  the  series 
of  twenty-one  pictures  painted  by  Rubens  for  ]\Iarie 
de'  Medici  and  placed  in  the  grand  room  of  the  palace 
of  the  Luxembourg.  The  palace  was  afterwards  de- 
stroyed and  the  pictures  taken  to  the  Louvre.  For 
years  they  hung  in  that  passage-way  gallery  through 
wliich  bands  of  tourists  continually  do  file;  and  for 
years  every  tourist,  whether  artist,  connoisseur,  or 
art-ignoramus,  filed  by  and  rejoiced  to  abuse  "  those 
big  bad  pictures  by  Rubens."     Of  course  he  could 


OLD   MASTERS  OUT  OF   PLACE  13 

see  nothing  from  his  position  save  foreshortened  legs 
and  feet,  yet  that  never  influenced  his  denunciation 
in  the  least.  But  within  the  last  few  years  a  large 
room,  corresponding  in  size  to  the  room  for  which 
the  pictures  were  originally  designed,  has  been  built 
in  the  Louvre,  and  now,  framed  in  separate  panels 
in  their  new  home,  the  "  big  bad  pictures  by  Kubens  " 
have  turned  out  to  be  superb  masterpieces — marvels 
of  decorative  splendor.  Painters  and  amateurs  can- 
not now  find  enough  to  say  in  praise  of  them.  Have 
the  pictures  themselves  undergone  any  change?  Not 
in  the  least.  They  are  merely  seen  from  a  proper 
distance — the  distance  they  were  originally  designed 
to  be  seen  from — that  is  all. 

Eubens's  pictures  are  not  the  only  ones  that  have 
suffered  thus.  The  fine  Italian  pictures,  with  the 
statues,  bronzes,  and  bas-reliefs  in  Berlin,  were  never 
seen  in  the  old  galleries  there  except  at  a  great  dis- 
advantage. Within  the  last  three  years  they  have 
been  removed  to  the  new  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Museum, 
which  has  been  fitted  up  with  lighting,  background, 
wall  space,  and  surroundings  to  suggest,  if  not  to 
reproduce,  the  ancient  setting  of  these  works  of  art. 
On  the  main  floor  a  church  interior  with  chapels  and 
altars  has  been  erected,  and  some  altar-pieces  have 
been  placed  there  in  the  chapels,  to  give  an  idea  of 
how  the  pictures  might  have  looked  in  their  original 
homes. 

Everywhere  in  this  new  museum  there  has  been  the 


14  STUDIES   I\   PICTURES 

attempt  to  give  plenty  of  room,  the  proper  illumina- 
tion, and  to  create  harmonious  surroundings  for  the 
pictures  hy  placing  near  them  Italian  tapestries,  cas- 
soni,  tables,  chairs,  bronzes,  terra-cottas.  The  effect 
is  really  quite  wonderful.  The  pictures  appear  now 
much  finer  in  quality, much  more  important  than  ever 
before.  The  whole  new  arrangement  is  a  most  suc- 
cessful attempt  to  obviate  the  disadvantages  of  trans- 
planting, to  do  away  with  the  distortions  of  purpose 
produced  by  the  old  museums.  Mrs.  Gardner's  Fen- 
way Court  in  Boston  is  another  successful  attempt 
at  reconstructing  a  setting  for  pictures,  at  making 
an  ensemble,  a  harmonious  unity  of  art  objects;  and 
in  this  connection  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  in  Xew  York  has  undertaken  a  simi- 
lar enterprise  with  its  pictures. 

Of  course  a  narrow  gallery  like  that  in  the  Louvre 
does  little  harm  to  a  snuill  picture  as  big  as  your 
hand,  by  Gerard  Don  or  Meissonier.  They  are  like 
miniatures,  and  need  a  microscope  rather  than  set- 
ting and  distance.  Nor  is  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck 
or  Holbein  either  greatly  harmed  or  helped  by  gal- 
lery light;  but  it  is  very  different  with  a  wall  picture 
by  Tintoretto,  or  a  series  of  foreshortened  ceiling 
pieces  by  Paolo  Veronese.  Seen  at  shoit  range  the 
figur(>s  in  the  Tintoretto  seem  great  lumpy  giants 
falling  out  of  the  canvas,  and  the  foreshortening  of 
Paolo's  figures  and  architecture  you,  perhaps,  think 
some  egregious  blunder,  because  you  are  seeing  them 


(V  —PAOLO    VERONESE  (?),   Triunriph  of  Mordecai.     S.  Sebastiano,  Venice. 


OLD  MASTERS  OUT   OF   PLACE  15 

placed  upright  on  the  wall  instead  of  flattened  on 
the  ceiling  (Plate  4).  In  Venice,  when  you  saw 
Paolo  and  Tintoretto  on  the  walls  and  ceilings  of  the 
Ducal  Palace  did  you  have  any  protest  to  make  about 
foreshortening  or  large  figures?  In  Antwerp,  when 
you  saw  Eubens's  "  Descent  from  the  Cross  "  at  long 
range  in  the  Cathedral,  did  you  think  anything  about 
his  figures  being  "gigantic,  coarse,  and  Flemish"? 

The  truth  is  that  all  the  pictures  by  these  great 
masters  are  rightly  planned,  scaled,  and  painted  for 
the  places  they  were  originally-intGnded.  to  occupy. 
If  we  do  not  see  them  to-day  from  the  proper  point 
of  view  the  fault  is  ours,  not  theirs.  And  the  gist 
of  what  I  would  say  just  now  is  that  the  galleries 
are  largely  responsible  for  our  false  vision.  We  must 
make  allowance  then  in  picture  viewing,  as  in  almost 
every  other  pursuit  or  study  in  life,  for  our  own  blun- 
derings — the  obstacles  that  we  unwittingly  put  in  our 
pathway,  and  over  which  we  are  continually  stum- 
bling. We  shall  meet  many  of  them  in  our  study 
of  pictures;  and,  indeed,  if  we  ever  arrive  at  an  ap- 
preciation of  any  worthy  thing  it  must  be  largely 
by  a  process  of  eliminating  all  the  unworthy  things 
that  surround  it. 


CHAPTER    II 
PICTURES  RUINED,  RESTORED,   AND   REPAINTED 

Does  it  ever  occur  to  the  average  person  in  a  gallery 
to  inquire  into  the  state  of  preservation  of  the  famous 
old  masters  that  hang  upon  the  walls — the  masters 
that  are  looked  at  with  so  much  delight  perhaps? 
Practically  all  of  them  have  been  torn  from  church 
and  chapel  and  palace,  taken  away  by  conquerors 
of  one  sort  or  another  and  given  a  home,  after  many 
wanderings,  in  public  collections ;  but  are  they  in  the 
same  condition  as  when  they  first  went  forth  from 
their  makers'  workshops  ?  These  rare  things  of  Leo- 
nardo or  Titian  or  Romljrandt  that  are  now  the  pride 
of  this  or  that  gallery,  have  they  been  transferred 
and  kept  witliout  injury?  Is  the  jewel  the  same, 
and  is  it  only  the  setting  we  have  lost? 
,  Ah,  no !  Many  of  the  noblest  and  the  best  of  pic- 
tures have  l)ccn  almost  doslroycd  by  time  and  liad 
restoration.  'J'he  canvas  hanging  upon  the  wall  in 
bright  frame  with  famous  name  attached  is  often 
only  a  pretence — a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches.  Let 
me  bogin  at  once  by  being  specifif.  The  "  Mona 
Lisa''  is  far  removed  from  tho  picture  Leonardo  let 
pass  from  his  hands.     Jt  is  only  a  pale  ghost  of  its 


PICTURES   RESTORED  AND   REPAINTED       17 

former  self.  All  the  carnations  of  the  face  that 
Vasari  tells  us  about  have  flown  and  given  place  to 
leaden  hues.  The  subtlety  of  the  lights  and  shades, 
the  flow  of  graceful  contours,  the  beautiful  drawing 
of  the  cheeks,  the  forehead,  and  the  throat,  the  charm 
of  the  costume,  and  the  perspective  of  the  background 
have  been  worn  away,  almost  scrubbed  out  of  exist- 
ence by  cleaners'  hands  and  a  what-not  of  chemicals. 
It  is  a  wreck,  a  precious  thing  to  be  sure,  because 
we  have  so  little  left  to  us  by  Leonardo,  but  only  a 
beautiful  wreck ! 

The  famous  "  Assumption  "  by  Titian,  in  Venice, 
that  every  one  goes  into  ecstasies  over,  is  another 
wreck.  There  is  hardly  a  square  inch  of  its  sur- 
face that  now  shows  the  brush  of  Titian.  It  might 
at  one  time  have  been  a  masterpiece,  but  to-day  it 
is  only  a  good  illustration  of  how  deceivingly  the 
restoring-room  can  patch  up  a  picture.  It  is  re- 
painted almost  solidly  from  top  to  bottom,  and  little 
more  than  the  design — the  outline  drawing  of  the 
figures  and  the  composition — is  Titian's.  That  glori- 
ous glow  of  color  that  you  have  perhaps  innocently 
enough  raved^ about  is  largely  the  work  of  a  second- 
rate  modern  painter  who,  perhaps  failing  to  paint 
successful  pictures  of  his  own,  long  ago  turned  his 
talent  in  the  direction  of  "  restoring "  old  masters 
and  making  them  "  as  good  as  new." 

He  has  restored  Titian's  "  Presentation "  (Plate 
■5)  as  well  as  the  "  Assumption."    Few  large  canvases 


18  STUDIES    IN    PICTURES 

have  escaped  him.  lie  or  his  type  i.s  the  genius  of 
the  gallery  repair-shop  to  whom  sooner  or  later  al- 
most every  old  master  is  sent.  As  for  the  celehratcd 
"  Night  Watch  "  by  Eeml)randt,  I  was  looking  at  it 
only  a  few  months  ago  with  the  director  of  the  gal- 
lery where  the  picture  is  now  placed,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  talk  he  said  with  a  little  smile:  "  If  you 
could  see  the  *  Night  Watch'  without  the  deceptive 
varnishes  and  glazes  you  would  be  very  much  sur- 
prised." I  answered  that  I  had  seen  it  in  that  con- 
dition, in  the  cleaning-room  many  years  before,  and 
had  indeed  been  surprised.  It  was  a  sorry-looking 
afTair.  The  drawing  and  modelling  were  uncertain; 
the  lights  and  colors  were  distorted,  bleached,  inhar- 
monious, alinosl  impossible  because  of  the  old  at- 
tempts at  restoration  and  repainting.  It  was  a  clear 
case  of  another  archangel  ruined. 

I'erhaps  you  are  startled  by  these  statements  and 
disturbed  to  find  that  some  of  the  world's  master- 
pieces are  little  more  than  ashes  of  roses,  but  you 
need  not  be.  The  information  is  not  new,  though 
it  may  not  have  hitherto  found  its  way  into  print. 
Those  mIio  have  studied  the  galleries  thoroughly 
know  that  many  of  Ibc  old  pictures  are  hopelessly 
injured,  ricnso  note  now  ibal  T  say  "many,"  not 
"all."  ^'ou  are  not  to  conclude  because  some  pic- 
tures are  in  bad  shape  that  every  one  is  a  false  pre- 
tence, and  that  consequently  the  appreciation  of  art 
is  an  nfTectation  and  its  history  a  specious  lie.     On 


PICTURES  RESTORED  AND  REPAINTED       19 

the  contrary,  the  great  majority  of  small  pictures  are 
still  well  preserved,  and  some  of  the  large  ones  are 
but  slightly  damaged.  There  is  enough  left  of  the 
uninjured  to  judge  from  and  to  enjoy. 

Why,  then,  do  I  mention  the  things  that  are 
patched  together  and  restored?  Simply  and  solely 
that  you  may  not  misjudge  the  dead  masters.  You 
are  not  to  sum  up  the  genius  of  a  Coleridge  from 
a  fragment  like  "  Kubla  Khan,"  nor  the  genius  of  a 
Eembrandt  from  a  wreck  like  the  "  Night  Watch." 
Such  pictures  as  the  "  Assumption  "  of  Titian,  and 
the  "  Holy  Night "  of  Correggio,  are  very  popular, 
and  you  may  conclude  that  they  are  the  best  pic- 
tures their  painters  ever  put  forth.  They  may  have 
been  when  originally  painted,  but  they  are  not  now. 
You  are  misjudging  those  great  masters.  If  you 
would  know  them  truly  you  must  study  Titian  in 
such  pictures  as  the  early  "  Sacred  and  Profane 
Love  "  or  "  The  Tribute  Money,"  and  Correggio  in 
the  pictures  at  Parma.  Even  the  "  Madonna  of  St. 
Francis "  at  Dresden  is  far  better  preserved,  and 
better  to  study  as  an  example  of  Correggio  than  his 
more  mature  but  much  injured  "  Holy  Night." 

"  But  why  are  '  restorers '  allowed  to  ruin  the  old 
pictures  ?  "  you  may  ask.  The  question  requires  an 
explanatory  answer.  The  harm  done  is,  of  course, 
not  intentional.  Some  of  it  is  brought  about  through 
ignorance,  some  through  want  of  skill  in  restoration, 
and  some  could  not  be  helped  in  the  nature  of  things. 


20  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

Every  director  of  a  gallery  likes  to  have  a  reputation 
for  "  doing  things  " — keeping  things  clean,  if  noth- 
ing else.  He  is  usually  a  government  ollicial  and 
subject  to  inspection  and  criticism.  When  the  mem- 
bers of  a  government  commission  march  tlirough  his 
gallery  they  may  know  nothing  about  art,  but  if  they 
see  all  the  pictures  looking  bright  and  fresh,  and 
the  premises  wearing  a  "  spick-and-span  "  look,  they 
conclude  that  the  director  is  doing  his  duty,  and  make 
report  accordingly.  The  result  is  that  some  gallery 
directors  like  to  have  clean-looking  pictures. 

Now  the  cleaning  of  a  picture  is  always  fraught 
with  danger — especially  in  ignorant  hands.  The  sur- 
face is  coated  with  varnish,  and  it  is  the  varnish  that 
catches  the  dirt  and  has  to  be  removed.  The  safe 
method  of  removing  it  is  with  the  thumlj — that  is, 
rubbing  it  with  the  bare  thumb  until  the  varnish 
grinds  into  white  powder  and  is  blown  away  with 
the  breath.  This  takes  time  and  labor.  The  quick, 
the  lazy,  and  the  unsafe  way  of  cleaning  is  with  a 
ball  of  cotton  saturated  with  alcohol.  The  alcohol 
removes  the  varnish  almost  instantly;  and  it  will 
remove  the  painting  underneath  almost  as  instantly, 
if  not  watched  and  checked  by  washing  away.  You 
can  imagine  thai  this  easy  method  of  working  is  the 
one  oftcner  followed,  and  that  accidents  liappen  when 
inexperienced  operators  handle  the  alcohol.  The 
fluid  eats  swiftly,  and,  perhaps  l)efore  the  cleaner 
knows  it,  the  legs  of  a  figure  by  Watteau,  or  the  nose 


VI.— CRIVELLI,   Madonna  and  Child.     Brera,   Milan. 


PICTURES  RESTORED  AND  REPAINTED       21 

and  mouth  of  a  Madonna  by  Raphael,  have  disap- 
peared from  view — have  been  literally  absorbed  by 
the  alcohol. 

But  that  does  not  give  the  cleaner  more  than  a 
momentary  palpitation  of  the  heart.  The  blunder 
is  to  be  covered  up,  hidden  from  the  public  by  all 
means.  So  the  picture  goes  into  the  hands  of  the 
"  restorer,"  who  with  brush  and  paints  calmly  paints 
the  legs  and  nose  and  mouth  on  again !  Once  more 
you  can  imagine  how  the  drawing  of  the  "  re- 
storer "  would  match  and  carry  out  the  drawing  of 
Eaphael,  and  how  his  painting  would  tally  with  the 
vivacious  handling  of  Watteau !  But  the  work  is 
done,  the  surface  is  somehow  "  toned  down "  with 
neutral  tints,  then  varnished  anew;  and  the  picture 
is  sent  back  to  the  gallery  to  be  hung,  in  a  dark  cor- 
ner perhaps,  where  you  will  not  notice  its  patching. 
But  the  patches  never  match  the  original  piece.  You 
cannot  make  new  paint  match  old  paint.  The  picture 
is  injured  forever. 

Even  when  the  removal  of  varnish  is  carefully 
done,  the  subsequent  cleaning  and  rubbing  of  the 
painted  surface  are  often  attended  with  injury.  The 
tender  surface  touches,  the  delicate  flesh  tints,  the 
more  subtle  shadows  that  give  the  modelling  of  a 
hand  or  a  cheek,  are  often  destroyed ;  and  the  picture 
forever  after  wears  a  pallid  look,  like  so  many  of  the 
existing  portraits  by  Gainsborough.  Cleaning,  no 
matter  who  does  it,  always  works  harm ;  and  restora- 


22  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

tion  is  always  a  patching  up,  however  skilful  the 
hand  that  rcj^torcs.  Yet  in  many  cases  they  are 
justified  and,  indeed,  eannot  he  avoided.  They  are 
necessary  evils.    Let  me  explain  that  a  little  farther. 

A  picture,  let  us  suppose  by  Crivelli  (Plate  (>),  is 
painted  in  distemper — that  is,  with  wliite  of  egg  or 
honey  instead  of  oil — upon  a  prepared  gesso  or 
plaster  ground.  The  plaster  is  laid  upon  a  chestnut 
panel.  After  two  hundred  years  the  wood  of  the 
panel  warps  and  cracks,  the  painted  surface  parts, 
the  plaster  disintegrates.  Something  has  to  be  done 
to  save  the  picture  from  complete  destruction.  A 
fresco  by  Mantcgna,  say  in  the  Church  of  the  Ere- 
mitani  at  Padua,  begins  to  scale  and  crumble  away. 
The  wall  has  become  dampened  by  water  soaking 
up  from  the  foundations.  The  picture  is  being  de- 
stroyed. Again  something  has  to  be  done.  A  great 
oil  canvas,  say  by  Tiepolo  (Plate  7),  hangs  on  the 
wall  for  many  years.  After  a  time  the  canvas  begins 
to  sag  in  the  middle  and  break  with  its  own  weight. 
The  varnishes  crack,  the  pigments  break  asunder,  the 
threads  of  the  canvas  part.  Once  again  something 
has  to  be  done. 

Whon  such  a  thing  happens — as  happen  it  will — 
the  picture  is  taken  down  after  having  been  covered 
across  its  face  with  many  pasted  strips  of  gauze 
cloth  like  mosquito  netting.  It  is  placed  face  down- 
ward on  a  flat  surface,  and  all  the  back  of  it,  whether 
of  wood,  canvas,  or  plaster,  is  removed,  planed  or 


PICTURES  RESTORED  AND  REPAINTED       23 

chiseled  away,  down  to  the  very  paint  itself.  Then 
a  new  canvas  back  is  put  in,  glued  firm  and  fast 
to  the  paint,  and  the  whole  duly  placed  upon  a 
new  wooden  stretcher.  Then  the  picture  is  turned 
over  upon  its  new  back  and  the  temporary  gauze 
strips  across  the  face  are  removed.  The  front  or 
surface  of  the  picture  now  has  to  be  cleaned  or  at 
least  restored  where  it  has  been  broken.  There  is  no 
help  for  it.  And  there  is  no  way  of  making  the  new 
tones  exactly  match  the  old.  Perhaps,  in  an  amateur- 
ish way,  you  have  painted  pictures  yourself;  and 
perhaps  you  have  tried  at  times  to  patch  up  or  add 
to  a  sky  that  you  had  painted  in  only  the  day  before. 
You  will  remember  that  you  could  not  do  it,  and 
that  finally  you  had  to  go  back  and  repaint  the  whole 
sky.  If  such  has  been  your  experience  with  new 
work  you  can  imagine  the  difficulty  of  touching  up 
robes  by  Giorgione,  or  flesh  by  Kubens,  or  skies  by 
Claude,  that  are  several  hundred  years  old.  The  re- 
sult is  always  something  false  in  value.  The  old 
picture  is  always  the  sufferer. 

But  again  let  me  say  that  not  all  old  pictures  are 
injured.  The  smaller  canvases  will  not  break  with 
their  own  weight;  the  little  pictures  on  wood  and 
copper  that  the  Dutchmen  painted  do  not  crack  like 
the  large  chestnut  panels  of  Italy;  and  there  are 
frescoes — the  famous  one  by  Benozzo  in  the  Eiccardi 
Palace,  Florence,  for  example — that  seem  almost 
as  perfect  as  when  first  placed  upon  the  wall.     The 


24  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

Miialler  works  may  be  hurt  by  knocks  or  rubbings 
or  cleanings,  but  thoy  are  more  likely  to  be  in 
good  condition  than  the  larger  pictures.  Yet  they 
are  not  impeccable.  Sometimes,  because  they  are 
small,  they  are  hung  on  screens  in  the  full,  blazing 
sunlight  to  be  ultimately  bleached,  or  placeil  on 
panels  near  steam  pipes  or  over  registers  to  be 
scorched  out  of  all  recognition.  Such  things  could 
hardly  happen  in  any  first-class  gallery  to-day;  yet 
it  was  only  a  few  decades  ago  that  almost  all  the  gal- 
leries were  given  over  to  dust  and  spiders,  the  tourist 
went  straight  away  from  Ihcm  instead  of  toward 
them,  and  the  j)ictures  themselves  fared  no  better 
than  any  other  abandoned  furniture.  Of  course  pic- 
tures do  not  recover  from  such  bad  treatment.  They 
always  wear  scars;  and  restorations  may  patch  and 
cover  and  hide,  but  they  do  not  really  restore  or  atone 
for  injuries. 

At  first  you  will  not  find  it  easy  to  detect  injuries 
by  repainting  and  restoration.  The  surface  will  all 
look  alike.  You  may  stand  in  front  of  Titian's 
"Man  with  the  Glove"  and  see  nothing  peculiar 
about  it.  But  when  one  at  your  olljow  tells  you  that 
the  neck  is  repainted  you  will  inimediately  notice 
that  the  repainting  creates  a  false  value  just  there. 
The  eye  is  easily  trained  and  soon  begins  to  notice 
inconsistencies  and  inetjualities  in  a  painted  surface. 
And  about  the  time  the  eye  becomes  very  sensitive 
it  is  necessary  to  exerci.se  it  with  caution.     Jt  amy  be 


u 

o 
>^ 

6 
_i 
o 

CL 


PICTURES  RESTORED  AND  REPAINTED       25 

too  keen,  see  too  much,  lead  you  into  making  too 
many  sweeping  conclusions.  Painters  themselves 
frequently  make  bad  blunders,  are  unequal,  uneven, 
and  inconsistent,  or  paint  in  different  styles  that 
often  lead  wise  critics  on  false  trails.  The  poor  re- 
storer in  tlie  cleaning-room  is  not  to  be  charged  up 
with  all  the  ills  that  may  be  apparent  in  the  picture. 
And  the  restorer  frequently  meets  with  ills  that  nei- 
ther he  nor  any  one  else  can  remedy — ills  that  are 
due  directly  to  the  folly  or  the  carelessness  of  the 
artist  himself.  I  refer  now  to  the  use  in  painting 
of  pigments  that  change  color,  of  mixed  or  insecure 
mediums,  and  of  that  painter's  pest  called  bitumen. 
Experimenting  with  different  mediums  has  been 
the  bane  of  many  an  artist,  and  the  ruin  of  many  a 
fine  picture.  Did  not  Leonardo,  defying  all  guild 
tradition,  paint  in  S.  M.  delle  Grazie  in  Milan  the 
celebrated  "Last  Supper"  on  a  plaster  wall,  in  oils  in- 
stead of  fresco ;  and  did  it  not  begin  to  scale  off  before 
the  painter  died?  There  is  nothing  left  of  it  to-day 
but  restoration — nothing  of  Leonardo's  but  the  bare 
outline  of  the  composition.  There  were  many  uneasy 
Leonardos  among  the  old  painters,  seeking  new  ways 
and  means  of  painting.  The  sound  oil  method 
of  the  Van  Ej^cks,  the  excellent  tempera  method  of 
Crivelli,  were  not  always  followed  by  Tintoretto  or 
Caravaggio  or  Poussin.  The  result  is  that  many  a 
Tintoretto  is  blackened  or  bleached  to-day,  as  you 
may  notice  in  his  sketch  work  in  the  Scuola  San  Eocco 


26  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

at  Venice,  or  liis  pictures,  such  as  the  "  Adam  and 
Eve"  (Plate  8)  in  the  Venice  Academy.  Caravag- 
gio  suffers  in  the  same  way  from  excessive  blacken- 
ing of  the  shadows,  though  he  was  designedly  deep 
pitched  in  his  darks;  and  Poussin's  colors  you  will 
frequently  find  changed,  or  bleached  out  of  value,  or 
with  a  stained  look  about  them  which  no  doubt  came 
from  using  some  mixed  medium  that  affected  the 
coloring  matter  unfavorably.  Often  in  the  large  pic- 
tures of  Paolo  Veronese  you  will  see  skies  of  a  dull 
lead  color,  or  brown,  or  turned  to  a  pea-green  through 
the  use  perhaps  of  a  blue  that  has  changed  color; 
and  careful  as  Titian  was  with  pigments  he  occasion- 
ally employed  reds  that  darkened  and  yellows  that 
lightened,  much  to  the  detriment  of  the  color  scheme 
of  his  picture. 

The  English  pictures  of  the  late  eighteenth  cen- 
tury have  suffered  perhaps  worse  than  any  others  in 
the  matter  of  fugitive  colors.  Many  an  otherwise 
fine  portrait  by  Keynolds  or  Romney  is  to-day  as 
pallid  as  ashes  in  the  face,  its  flesh  notes  all  gone, 
and  its  shadows  turned  hot  and  foxy.  Sir  Joshua's 
work  suffered  severely  through  his  unfortunate  use 
of  unstable  color;  and  as  for  the  work  in  oil  of 
Turner,  the  collection  in  the  National  Gallery  is  elo- 
quent of  disaster.  Turner  thought  that  "  vagueness  " 
was  his  forte,  but  he  never  could  have  anticipated 
such  obliteration  through  fading  color  and  crumblinir 
surface.     Half  his  skies  have  changed  from  blue  to 


PICTURES  RESTORED  AND  REPAINTED       27 

lemon-yellow  or  chalk-white,  and  his  other  tones  have 
no  doubt  suffered  in  corresponding  degree.  This 
doubtless  came  about  through  his  use  of  any  coloring 
matter  that  would  answer  the  momentary  need,  and 
any  medium  that  happened  to  be  handy.  He  used 
oils,  water-color,  egg,  India-ink,  lead-pencil — any- 
thing he  could  lay  hands  upon — and  sometimes  all 
of  them  upon  one  canvas.  To-day  the  Turner  room 
in  the  National  Gallery  is  something  appalling  to 
contemplate.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  it 
is  something  Turner  is  responsible  for,  and  not  the 
restorer  in  the  cleaning-room. 

Just  so  with  the  bitumen-painted  portraits  of  Eae- 
burn,  some  of  which  have  darkened  almost  beyond 
recognition.  The  forehead  curls  of  the  beautiful 
"  Mrs.  Scott-Moncrieff,"  at  Edinburgh,  have  almost 
slipped  over  the  eyes,  owing  to  the  running  of  the 
bitumen  with  which  they  were  saturated.  Bitumen 
will  not  dry  on  a  canvas  any  more  than  on  an  asphalt 
pavement.  And  eventually  it  ruins  whatever  it 
touches,  as  you  may  see  by  some  of  the  pictures  of 
Wilkie  or  Opie,  or  even  our  own  William  Page. 
Some  of  the  works  of  Munkacsy,  painted  but  a  few 
years  ago,  are  growing  black  almost  beyond  recogni- 
tion; and  many  a  reckless  modern  painter,  who  de- 
lights in  the  way  his  brush  slips  through  a  bitumen 
background,  is  preparing  his  canvases  for  a  speedy 
exit  into  darkness  and  oblivion. 

Even  a  black  underbasing  sometimes  plays  havoc 


28  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

with  a  picture  by  working  through  to  the  surface  and 
disintegrating  the  upper  pigments.  Van  Dyck  fre- 
quently painted  hands,  with  white  cufrs  at  the 
wrists,  over  a  background  tliat  he  had  carelessly 
brushed  in  with  black,  in  connection  perhaps  with 
the  painting  of  a  black  dress.  The  hands  to-day 
often  look  as  though  they  had  been  handling  coal, 
and  the  white  cuffs  are  sadly  soiled.  The  works  of 
Kibera  and  IJibot  are  suffering  from  the  same  care- 
lessness. Black  has  proved  destructive  to  numerous 
pictures,  and  even  a  precise  Dutchman  like  Terburg 
lias  left  portraits  that  now  look  sooty  in  the  face  and 
grimy  in  the  linen  because  of  the  dark  background 
upon  which  they  were  painted. 

So  you  see  there  are  many  causes  for  pictures  not 
being  to-day  what  they  were  when  originally  painted 
— causes  for  which  the  painter  is  sometimes  as  re- 
sponsible as  the  restorer.  But,  again,  you  are  not 
to  infer  that  all  old  pictures  are  injured  by  bitumen 
and  fugitive  pigments.  The  great  bulk  of  them  were 
painted  with  sound  mediums  and  durable  pigments, 
and  are  to-day  in  comparatively  good  condition.  But 
it  is  perhaps  necessary  you  should  know  that  acci- 
dents have  happened  in  the  best  of  painters'  studios; 
and  that  occasionally  a  chemical  change  has  dis- 
torted a  painter's  meaning  and  turned  his  canvas  into 
nonsense. 


CHAPTER    III 
FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,  COPIES,   FORGERIES 

Every  one  who  comes  to  know  the  famous  gal- 
leries and  their  pictures  sooner  or  later  finds  out 
that  all  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  and  pictures  are  not 
always  what  they  seem.  Celebrated  names  are  often 
tacked  upon  inferior  canvases,  and  many  an  old 
master  has  had  to  stand  sponsor  for  work  which  he 
never  knew,  never  saw.  This  false  attribution  of 
pictures  is  one  of  the  worst  stumbling  blocks  in  the 
student's  pathway.  You,  for  instance,  are  looking 
at  a  "  Holy  Family  "  by  Titian.  Does  the  mere  fact 
that  it  is  under  his  name  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
Louvre,  or  the  Pitti,  or  the  Prado,  prove  its  genuine- 
ness? So  far  from  doing  so  it  may  almost  make  its 
genuineness  suspicious.  And  that  statement  is  so 
liable  to  misinterpretation  that  it  requires  immediate 
explanation. 

The  directors  of  galleries  are  not  loath  to  have 
great  names  in  their  catalogues.  The  names  sound 
well  upon  the  ear;  they  look  well  to  the  eye;  they 
give  rank  and  importance  to  the  gallery.  It  becomes 
a  boast  of  admirers  that  such-and-such  a  gallery  has 

29 


30  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

twenty  Kembrandts  or  a  dozen  Correggios,  and  peo- 
ple Hock  to  the  gallery  because  of  this  attraction. 
The  student  world,  as  well  as  tlie  tourist  contingent, 
is  impressed  by  the  show  of  names.  Almost  every 
one  holds  his  breath  and  exclaims :  "  A}\ !  a  Ra- 
phael !  "  when  he  comes  up  to  the  "  St.  John  in  the 
Desert  "  in  the  Louvre.  Would  he  hold  his  breath 
and  exclaim  if  the  picture  bore  the  name  of  Sebas- 
tiano  del  Piombo  ?  Certainly  not.  That  is  one  reason 
why  it  does  not  bear  Sebastiano's  name,  as  it  should. 
Raphael  never  painted  the  picture,  and  you,  when 
you  are  studying  the  picture  as  a  Raphael,  are  gain- 
ing a  false  impression  of  that  painter. 

The  Louvre  has  upon  its  catalogue  no  less  than 
thirteen  pictures  set  down  under  the  name  of  Ra- 
phael. Of  these  there  is  a  boyish  "  St.  C.eorge,"  a 
small  and  early  "  St.  Michael,"  "  La  Belle  Jardi- 
niere," the  "  Holy  Family  of  Francis  I,"  and  a 
portrait — five  in  all — that  are  genuine  enough.  But 
not  one  of  the  five  is  an  important  example  of  the 
painter.  The  other  eight  pictures  attributed  to  him 
are  by  pupils,  imitators,  or  painters  who  painted  in 
a  style  somewhat  similar  to  his.  That  the  direction 
of  the  Louvre  should  mend  its  catalogue  by  crossing 
off  eight  Raphaels  is,  of  course,  expecting  too  much. 
It  would  lower  the  importance  of  the  collection  in 
the  eyes  of  Europe.  The  truth  must  be  suppressed 
and  false  art  history  continue  to  be  taught.  How 
misleading  and  provocative  of  harm  all  this  is  may 


IX.— VELASQUEZ   ('),   Unknown    Man.     Berlin   Gallery. 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,   COPIES,   FORGERIES    31 

be  suggested  by  considering  one  more  of  these  alleged 
Kaphaels  in  the  Louvre. 

The  catalogue  calls  for  a  portrait  of  Raphael  by 
himself.  When  found  it  proves  to  be  the  likeness  of 
a  stupid  young  boy,  with  eyes  and  nose  ill-drawn, 
leaning  his  head  upon  a  dropsical  hand,  and  trying 
his  very  best  to  fall  out  of  the  picture-frame.  Ar- 
tistically, it  is  next  to  worthless,  no  matter  who 
painted  it.  There  is  hardly  a  commendable  quality 
about  it.  And  yet  it  is  astonishing  how  people  gather 
in  front  of  that  picture  and  praise  its  wonderful 
qualities,  thinking  it  a  Eaphael.  Even  art  students, 
who  should  know  something  about  drawing,  copy  the 
picture ;  and  every  art  shop  in  Paris  has  a  reproduc- 
tion of  it  for  sale.  Poor  Eaphael !  No  wonder  some 
modern  artists  are  beginning  to  question  his  title  to 
fame !  If  he  has  to  father  such  pictures  as  this  noth- 
ing can  keep  him  in  the  empyrean.  But  he  is  mis- 
represented. The  picture  is  of  an  unknown  youth, 
and  was  painted  by  Bacchiacca.  Again  could  you 
expect  the  Louvre  people  to  give  up  the  pretty  tradi- 
tion of  Eaphael  by  Raphael? 

How  many  years  did  the  direction  of  the  Dresden 
Gallery  fight  its  critics  about  that  "  Eeading  Mag- 
dalene," supposed  to  be  by  Correggio — the  figure  in 
a  blue  robe  lying  on  the  ground  with  the  skull  and 
the  book  ?  Was  not  Morelli  abused  as  an  ignoramus 
when  he  said  it  was  not  even  an  Italian  picture,  but 
belonged  to  a  degenerate  Flemish  school?     And  all 


32  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

tlie  time  the  Dresden  Ciallury  people  must  have 
kiio\ni  that  the  picture  was  not  by  Correggio,  to  say 
the  least.  Finally,  they  gave  up  under  public  pres- 
sure, and  now  the  picture  is  relegated  to  the  follow- 
ing of  Van  dcr  Wcrff.  When  heavy  enough  pressure 
is  brought  to  bear  against  the  Louvre  direction,  il, 
too,  will  give  up  about  its  supposititious  Raphaels, 
Leonardos,  and  Ilolboins.  In  the  meantime  the  pub- 
lic must  wait  while  art  history  continues  to  be  dis- 
torted, and  art  students  are  mystified. 

But  the  Louvre  is  not  to  be  singled  out  for  special 
delinquency.  Indeed,  we  need  not  go  across  the 
water.  Our  own  museums  furnish  excellent  exam- 
ples of  short-comings  in  this  respect.  Perhaps  some 
day  you  may  go  to  your  municipal  gallery  in  Boston 
or  New  York  or  Chicago,  after  reading  up  on  Velas- 
quez, prepared  to  enjoy  that  master.  You  may  find 
pictures  attributed  to  liiin  in  the  catalogue,  and  vet 
not  one  of  them  be  by  him.  This  "  Infanta,"  for  ex- 
ample, may  be  by  a  pupil,  possibly  Velasquez's  son- 
in-law  Mazo;  and  this  "Portrait  of  a  Prince"  by 
Carreno  de  Miranda,  an  imitator.  BotJi  of  them  may 
be  good  pictures,  and  suggest  Velasquez  without  be- 
ing his  work.  And  how  can  you  expect  the  authori- 
ties of  a  rather  thinly  furnished  American  gallery  to 
take  down  the  celebrated  name  of  Velasquez  and  put 
in  its  stead  the  little-known  names  of  Mazo  and 
Carreno  ? 

If  you  should  look  up  liolbein  or  Hals  or  Eubens 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,  COPIES,   FORGERIES     33 

or  Terbnrg  you  might  again  meet  with  pictures 
under  those  names  that  are  of  questionable  authen- 
ticity. And  they  might  be  good  pictures,  too.  It 
does  not  at  all  follow  because  a  picture  is  by  Backer, 
instead  of  by  Eembrandt,  that  it  is  a  bad  picture. 
The  only  fault  to  be  found  with  it  may  lie  in  its 
mistaken  label.  In  the  National  Gallery,  London, 
there  is  a  "  Christ  Bound  to  the  Column  "  set  down 
to  Velasquez  that  is  an  excellent  picture,  in  fact, 
quite  worthy  of  Velasquez;  as  again  in  the  Berlin 
Gallery  a  "Portrait  of  a  Young  Man"  (Plate  9)  ; 
but  neither  is  by  him,  and  when  attributed  to  him 
gives  people  a  false  idea  of  his  method  and  style. 
Likewise  in  the  Vienna  Gallery  there  is  a  "  St.  Se- 
bastian "  attributed  to  Correggio  (Frontispiece)  that 
shows  none  of  the  characteristics  of  Correggio,  but 
is  (to  me  at  least)  an  unusual  example  of  Giorgione. 
Mr.  Berenson  thinks  it  by  Cariani,  an  imitator  of 
Giorgione;  and  possibly  there  are  others  who  might 
place  it  elsewhere.  But  the  attribution  or  name  does 
not  render  it  the  less  or  the  more  beautiful.  It  is 
a  fine  picture  in  itself. 

All  the  galleries  of  Europe  and  America  are  more 
or  less  open  to  criticism  for  the  names  they  append 
to  pictures.  And  they  are  also  more  or  less  ex- 
cusable. The  absence  of  record  or  documents,  or 
perhaps  the  existence  of  false  tradition,  together  with 
the  resemblances  of  school  work  and  imitators,  make 
the  matter  of  attribution  anything  but  an  easy  task. 


34  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

Oftentimes  the  direclors  of  galleries  arc  at  loss  to 
know  where  a  picture  belongs.  Some  of  them  are 
very  anxious  to  get  at  the  truth,  but  are  confused  by 
the  conflicting  opinions  of  connoisseurs,  who  are 
prone  to  quarrel  among  themselves.  There  is  agree- 
ment now  among  the  critics  that  the  so-called  For- 
narina  picture  (Plate  10),  for  instance,  is  neither 
of  the  Fornarina  nor  by  Raphael.  It  is  the  portrait 
of  an  unknown  lady  by  Sebastiano  del  Piombo.  But 
pictures  like  the  "  Madonna,  Child,  and  St.  John  " 
in  the  Louvre  (Plate  11),  given  to  Botticelli,  for 
another  instance,  are  still  questioned  by  some.  This 
particular  picture  seems  more  characteristic  of  Fra 
Filippo  than  of  Botticelli — at  least  a  good  argument 
can  be  made  for  him.  The  student  can  know  what 
is  true  and  what  is  false  only  after  years  of  long 
wrestling  with  the  pros  and  cons  of  each  case.  Con- 
tradictions and  inconsistencies  beset  him  at  every 
step. 

There  is  another  fruitful  source  of  error  that  may 
bother  the  student.  There  are  old  copies  that  come 
down  to  us  of  celebrated  works,  and  these  are  handed 
out  by  their  possessors  as  replicas — that  is,  repeti- 
tions of  the  same  su])ject  by  the  same  artist;  when, 
as  stated,  they  are  only  copies  by  indifferent  hands. 
In  the  days  of,  say,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  when  a 
bright  l)oy  wished  to  become  a  painter  he  applied 
for  admission  to  Sir  Joshua's  "  painting  room  "  more 
as  an  apprentice  than  as  an  "  art  student."     After 


X.- SEBASTIANO    DEL    PIOMBO,   Portrait.     U^fizi,   Florence. 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,  COPIES,   FORGERIES     35 

grinding  color  and  doing  general  work  about  the 
studio  for  many  months.  Sir  Joshua  would,  perhaps, 
set  him  at  work  copying  some  of  his  paintings  for 
practice.  Let  us  suppose  that  after  a  time  the  youth 
makes  a  very  acceptable  copy  of,  for  example,  the 
"  Strawberry  Girl."  Some  friend  of  Sir  Joshua's 
happens  in  the  studio,  admires  the  copy,  buys  it  for 
ten  pounds;  and  takes  it  up  to  his  country  place, 
where  it  is  hung  in  the  hallway  as  the  "  Strawberry 
Girl "  by  Reynolds.  Several  generations  die  off,  the 
story  of  the  copy  is  forgotten;  but  the  title  still 
clings  to  the  picture.  After  a  hundred  years  of  this 
forgetfulness,  as  the  result  of  family  bankruptcy, 
perhaps,  the  picture  suddenly  turns  up  in  a  London 
auction  room  as  a  Reynolds — "  a  replica  of  the  one 
in  the  possession  of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen,"  or 
words  to  that  effect. 

It  is  an  old,  old  story,  made  up  half  of  ignorance 
and  the  other  half  of  direct  fabrication;  but  it  is 
not  the  less  puzzling  to  the  student.  The  copy  looks 
like  an  old  master,  and  in  every  respect  except  draw- 
ing, handling,  and  general  quality,  is  like  the  origi- 
nal. And  frequently  there  are  long  and  wordy  wars 
about  them.  There  is  a  "  Madonna  of  the  Eocks  " 
attributed  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci  in  both  the  Louvre 
and  the  National  Gallery,  London;  and  the  dispute 
still  goes  on  as  to  which  is  the  original  and  which  the 
copy.  There  are  no  less  than  three  Raphael  por- 
traits of  Julius  IL  one  each  in  the  Pitti,  the  Uffizi, 


36  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

and  the  National  Ciallciy,  Jjondon;  and  there  are 
two  dozen  portraits  of  Philip  by  Velasquez  scattered 
through  various  galleries  in  Europe.  The  existence 
of  these  repeated  portraits  by  Velasquez  is  quite  as 
casil}'  explained  as  the  copy  of  the  "  Strawberry 
Girl."  In  Philip's  days  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  photography,  and  when  he  wished  a  likeness  of 
himself  to  give  to  a  brother  sovereign  of  Austria, 
France,  or  England,  he  simply  ordered  Velasquez  to 
have  a  copy  made  from  a  former  portrait  that  had 
proved  acceptable.  Velasquez  in  turn  probably  or- 
dered Mazo  or  Carreno  or  some  other  pupil  to  make 
the  copy,  merely  satisfying  himself  that  the  work 
was  well  done,  and  putting  his  ofhcial  stamp  of  ap- 
proval upon  it.  The  recipient  of  the  portrait  was 
no  doubt  told  that  "  Velasquez  did  it " ;  and  in  that 
way  the  picture  was  handed  down  in  its  royal  gallery 
as  a  Velasquez,  "  Presented  by  the  King  of  Spain." 

Xow  the  copy  when  done  by  an  inferior  pupil  or 
common  copyist  is  rather  easily  detected.  The  origi- 
nal is  perhaps  painted  freely  and  boldly  by  a  man 
who  is  not  afraid  of  making  a  blunder.  In  his  draw- 
ing he  knows  that  if  he  slips  over  a  line  or  pushes 
a  light  too  hard,  or  deepens  a  sliadow  or  a  lone  too 
much  he  can  easily  rub  it  out,  do  it  over  again, 
mend  it  quickly  enough  with  a  few  strokes  of  the 
brush.  People  like  Kubens,  Hals,  and  A^elasquez 
drew  swiftly  and  handled  surely;  but  the  poor  copy- 
ist who  comes  after  Ihcni  trica  to  reproduce  their 


XL— BOTTICELLI   (?),   Madonna,   Child  and   SL  John.     Louvre,   Paris. 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,   COPIES,   FORGERIES     37 

work  a  sixteenth  of  an  inch  at  a  time,  and  is  always 
fearful  that  his  brush  will  go  astray  and  produce 
a  false  light,  or  give  an  abnormal  modelling.  The 
result  is,  the  copy  shows,  timidity,  especially  in  the 
outline  drawing  and  the  handling  of  the  brush.  The 
picture  is  weak,  spiritless,  wanting  in  individuality; 
and,  above  all,  wanting  in  the  qualities  of  body, 
bulk,  and  substance  which  distinguish  a  genuine  ar- 
ticle from  an  imitation.  If  the  picture  is  a  portrait, 
the  sitter  in  the  copy  will  want  the  live  look  of  the 
original,  and  will  appear  as  though  done  from  a 
photograph  after  death ;  if  the  original  is  a  landscape 
by  Corot,  the  trees  in  the  copy  will  lack  in  branch- 
drawing,  the  leaves  will  look  heavy,  and  the  sky 
woolly ;  if  the  original  is  a  blaze  of  color  by  Eubens, 
the  copy  will  have  flesh  notes  that  arc  hectic  and 
apoplectic,  the  robes  will  lack  in  depth  and  reso- 
nance, and  the  handling  will  lack  in  fluency. 

On  the  contrary  a  copy  made  by  a  first-rate  artist 
may  not  deceive  an  expert,  but  it  ^^n\\  often  lead 
an  amateur  astray.  To  the  expert  a  picture  after 
Eembrandt  by  a  pupil  like  Bol  proves  itself  a  copy 
because  it  reveals  the  methods  and  mannerisms  of 
Bol.  The  individuality  of  the  copyist  protrudes  in 
color,  drawing,  and  handling.  I  have  in  mind  at 
this  moment  a  copy  of  a  Titian  Madonna  by  Manet 
which,  of  course,  suggests  Titian,  but  also  reveals 
Manet.  His  peculiar  palette,  patch  painting,  and 
handling  could  not  be  suppressed.    In  the  same  way 


38  STUDIES    IN    PICTURES 

two  portraits  of  liic  Infanta  Maria  Theresa  in  the 
Velasquez  Eoom  of  the  I'rado  at  Madrid  are  almost 
surely  by  some  follower  of  Velasquez,  simply  because 
they  do  not  show  the  palette  and  brush  of  the  greater 
master.  They  reveal  another  and  a  different  per- 
sonality. 

The  beginner  does  not  read  such  pictures  easily, 
and  is  continually  deceived  by  them ;  and  so,  too,  on 
occasion,  are  experts  and  artists.  We  are  told  that 
Andrea  del  Sarto's  copy  of  Raphael's  "  T^eo  X  "  de- 
ceived even  Giulio  Eoniano,  w'ho  had  a  hand  in  paint- 
ing the  original.  And  many  times  have  altar-pieces 
been  spirited  out  of  Italy  and  copies  put  up  in  their 
places  that  were  not  detected  until  long  years  after- 
ward. But  usually  the  copy  betrays  itself  either  by 
its  timidity  or  by  its  boldness. 

^\'hat  are  called  "  school  pieces "  are  often  more 
deceptive  than  copies,  because  they  are  done  with  the 
assistance,  or  at  least  general  supervision,  of  the  mas- 
ter himself.  A  great  painter  like  "Rul)cns  with  half 
a  hundred  pupils  and  witli  many  large  orders  for 
church  pictures,  was  compelled  to  maintain  some- 
thing like  a  picture  factory.  He  himself  was  too 
busy  designing  and  planning  to  do  the  entire  work 
of  executing.  He  probably  did  the  outlining  and  his 
pupils  filled  in,  painting  the  draperies,  the  landscape, 
the  animals,  the  accessories.  Possibly  as  a  final  care 
Eubens;  did  some  finishing  strokes,  amending  an 
error  here  and  there.     Then  the  picture  went   forth 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,   COPIES,   FORGERIES     39 

as  from  the  Eubens  shop  with  his  stamp  of  approval, 
like  any  other  merchandise. 

In  those  days  it  was  not  considered  at  all  dishon- 
orable to  hand  out  school  work  under  the  master's 
name.  Giovanni  Bellini  sent  forth  altar-pieces  and 
small  Madonnas,  with  his  own  signature  upon  them, 
that  were  executed  almost  entirely  by  his  pupils. 
And  he  meant  no  deception  thereby.  His  name  was 
only  a  hall-mark,  giving  the  stamp  of  excellence  to 
art  goods  going  out  from  his  studio.  Sometimes  even 
portraits  were  worked  upon  by  pupils  or  copied  by 
them,  so  that  there  is  some  mystery  as  to  where 
they  came  from  (Plate  12*).  All  painters  of 
importance  whose  services  were  in  much  demand 
availed  themselves  of  their  pupils'  help,  and  none 
more  than  "  the  divine  Kaphael."  The  very  "  Leo 
X,"  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  was  done  in 
part  by  Giulio  Romano;  and  most  of  the  pictures 
of  his  Eoman  period  were  executed  in  whole  or  in 
part  by  his  followers.  Just  so,  no  doubt,  with  Paolo 
Veronese  and  Tintoretto  and  Tiepolo.  It  would 
seem  as  physically  impossible  for  them  to  do  every- 
thing that  is  placed  under  their  names  as  for  Phidias 
to  have  cut  all  the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon. 
No  doubt  they  often  contented  themselves  with 
merely   supervising   the  work.      As   for   the   school 

*  This  portrait  has  been  attributed  to  Piero  della  Fran- 
cesca  but  it  is  not  quite  his  drawing,  which  leads  Mr.  Beren- 
son  to  suggest  that  it  is  by  Verrocchio. 


40  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

piece  itself,  it  is  frequently  so  good  that  it  is  dilfi- 
tult  to  say  whether  the  master  has  not  done  it  in 
a  period  of  weariness,  sickness,  or  haste.  Usually, 
however,  it  shows  the  inannerisins  or  peculiarities 
of  the  pupils,  and  may  be  detected  in  that  way.  It 
is  not  to  be  despised  by  any  means,  for  at  least  it  is 
likely  to  exhibit  the  traditions  and  teachings  of  the 
master. 

Nor  is  the  forgery  to  be  despised,  not  because  it 
hands  down  good  teaching;  but  because  it  can  be, 
and  often  is,  so  very  deceptive.  There  are,  to  be 
sure,  plenty  of  clumsy  efforts  that  deceive  no  one,  but 
there  are  also  clever  efforts  that  have  deceived  the 
very  elect,  A  forger  working  recently  in  Sienna  suc- 
ceeded in  fabricating  old  Siennese  pictures  that  mis- 
led the  best  experts  in  Italian  painting.  The  forged 
Corot  that  came  up  in  the  Dumas  case  in  Paris  a  few 
years  ago  is  another  illustration  to  the  point.  Critics 
and  experts  and  gallery  directors  have  been  victim- 
ized more  than  once  by  the  forger;  and  the  number 
of  forgeries  that  have  crept  into  private  collections 
in  America  is  something  astonishing,  bewildering, 
appalling.  Our  American  millionaires,  whose  brains 
have  stood  them  in  such  good  stead  in  the  accumula- 
tion of  money,  seem  to  part  with  their  common  sense 
when  it  comes  to  the  buying  of  pictures.  They  are 
a  shining  mark  for  the  European  sharpers,  who  have 
found  out  that  an  enormous  price  asked  is  considered 
a  guarantee  of  genuineness  in  America.     A  forgery 


■ 

r 

T 

»ti* 

9hR 

^M 

H^^^^^tt    H 

^^9 

1 

^m^^lM 

XII.— PIERO    DELLA    FRANCESCA  (?),   Unknown   Lady.     Poldi   Museunn,   Milan. 


FALSE  ATTRIBUTIONS,  COPIES,   FORGERIES     41 

that  is  not  worth  fifty  dollars  becomes  an  authentic 
masterpiece  when  held  at  fifty  thousand  dollars — a 
process  of  reasoning  sometimes  followed  in  London 
and  Paris  auction  rooms,  as  well  as  here  in  America, 

If  closely  examined  the  forgery  can  usually  be  de- 
tected even  by  the  amateur,  A  man's  drawing  or 
painting  is  very  much  like  a  man's  handwriting;  it 
has  an  individuality  about  it  that  is  characteristic. 
The  imitation  may  deceive  the  ignorant  or  the  care- 
less, but  not  the  person  familiar  with  the  handwriting 
or  the  brush  stroke.  For  there  is  the  same  exactness 
and  cramped  timidity  about  the  forgery  as  about  the 
copy.  It  lacks  freedom  and  spontaneity.  The  man^ 
behind  the  brush  is  afraid  and  hence  over-careful. 
He  tries  to  turn  himself  into  a  machine  and  repro- 
duce exactly,  with  the  result  once  more  of  a  lifeless 
product.  It  lacks  quality  in  the  drawing,  coloring, 
handling;  and  has  not  the  slightest  tang  of  distinc- 
tion about  it.  When  you  know  it  is  a  forgery  you 
can  see  its  shortcomings  readily  enough,  but  when 
you  believe  it  is  genuine,  it  is  astonishing  how  blind 
you  are  to  its  imperfections.  The  clumsiest,  stupid- 
est forgeries  imaginable  have  more  than  once  de- 
ceived people  of  intelligence  in  art  matters. 

In  all  this  matter  of  what  is  true  or  false,  what 
is  a  copy  or  a  school  piece,  what  is  repainted  and 
what  erroneously  attributed,  you  would  better  follow 
the  guidance  of  such  experts  as  Morelli,  Berenson, 
Frizzoni — men  who  have  made  a  life-long  study  of 


42  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

pictures.  You  will  lioar  Ihem  denounced  by  those 
who  difror  with  them,  and,  true  enough,  they  are  fre- 
quently in  error,  yet  they  are  more  likely  to  be  right 
than  others  of  less  experience.  Morelli,  who  died 
some  years  ago,  was  practically  the  first  to  take  up 
with  what  has  been  called  "  connoisseurship,"  and 
his  books  are  to  this  day  indispensable  to  the  student. 
His  method  has  been  followed  and  much  improved 
by  Mr.  Berenson,  a  very  competent  critic  who  has 
written  several  short  introductions  to  Italian  paint- 
ing containing  lists  of  genuine  works  by  the  Italian 
painters  that  will  be  found  serviceable. 

But  with  any  guide,  and  in  any  event,  it  will  re- 
quire time  and  much  experience  to  enable  you  to  sift 
the  chaff  from  the  wheat.  In  reality  connoisseur- 
ship  in  art  is  not  more  snarled  and  confused  than 
expert  knowledge  in  law,  medicine,  or  the  sciences, 
but  it  appears  so  at  first  blush. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THEMES  OF  THE  MASTERS 

Every  picture,  as  it  hangs  in  a  gallery,  undergoes 
cross-examination,  has  questions  asked  of  it  by  the 
mob  that  passes  before  it.  Perhaps  the  question 
that  is  asked  oftener  than  any  other  is,  "  What  does 
it  mean  ?  "  People  will  have  it  that  a  picture  must 
appeal  to  the  reason,  must  have  some  meaning  that 
even  a  blind  man  can_-understand ;  whereas,  painting 
primarily  appeals  to  the  senses,  and  is,  perhaps,  the 
one  thing  a  blind  man  cannot  understand.  But,  be 
that  as  it  may,  the  average  person  in  a  gallery  makes 
his  first  inquiry  about  the  subject  of  a  picture :  "  Who 
are  these  people?  What  are  they  doing?  What  are 
they  saying  ?  " 

If  you  insist  upon  asking  such  questions  of  the  old 
church  pictures  of  the  Renaissance  time,  the  proper 
answer  is  that  they  mean  almost  nothing  to  you  and 
to  me.  To  be  sure,  we  know  the  meaning  they  once 
had.  Here,  for  example,  is  Mantegna's  "  Madonna 
of  the  Victory  "  in  the  Louvre.  We  know  that  the 
picture  was  painted  in  honor  of  the  victory  of  For- 
nova,  that  the  woman  and  child  enthroned  ar6  the 
Madonna  and  Infant  Christ,  that  the  Archangel  Mi- 

43 


44  STUDIES    IN    PICTURES 

chael  on  one  side  and  St.  Maurice  on  the  other  side 
are  holding  uj)  iior  robe,  that  back  of  her  are  St. 
Andrew  and  St.  Longinus,  the  protecting  saints  of 
Mantua,  that  St.  Elizabeth,  the  mother  of  the  ^la- 
donna,  is  kneeling  in  front;  and  opposite  her,  also 
kneeling,  is  Francesco  (ionzaga.  Marquis  of  ^lantua, 
in  full  armor.  All  that  seems  simple  enough,  and  no 
doubt  meant  something  to  the  ^lantuans  who  knelt 
before  the  picture  in  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  della 
Vittoria  in,  say,  1490;  but  what  does  it  mean  to  you 
and  to  me,  born  in  another  land,  in  another  age,  per- 
haps in  another  faith? 

A  Madonna  and  Child  with  hands  outstretched  in 
blessing  from  some  chapel  recess,  signified  something 
to  the  worshipper  kneeling  below — the  believing 
P'lorentine  of  the  Early  Renaissance.  Religion  to 
that  person  was  not  a  thing  read  of  in  a  book,  but 
something  seen  upon  painted  walls  in  life-like  forms. 
Christ  on  the  cross  was  a  realilv  in  bronze  or  silver, 
instead  of  an  abstraction  conjured  up  in  the  brain; 
and  heaven,  far  from  being  a  vague  abode  of  di- 
aphanous spirits,  was  an  actual  city  with  gates  of 
gold  and  flowery  meadows,  where  angels  sang  and 
danced,  as  in  the  pictures  of  Fra  Angelico.  But 
what  do  such  representations,  such  picturings,  mean 
to  you  and  to  me?  Are  we  in  a  position  to  under- 
stand them?  Is  not  the  sjmibolism  of  Christian  art 
almost  as  much  of  a  closed  book  to  us  as  the  funeral 
rites  of  Egypt  or  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  of  Greece? 


_l 

UJ 

o 

(- 
I- 
o 

CQ 


THEMES   OF  THE   MASTERS  45 

There  are  pictures,  plenty  of  them,  still  standing 
upon  church  altars  in  Italy  to-day;  and  there  are 
worshippers,  plenty  of  them,  still  kneeling  before 
them;  but  not  one  of  the  kneelers  ever  asks,  "What 
does  the  picture  mean  ?  "  They  Tcnow.  We  of  an 
alien  race,  Puritans,  Quakers,  Baptists,  Presbyterians 
— Protestants  of  one  sort  or  another,  people  not  to 
the  manner  born — keep  pressing  that  question.  And 
we  continue  complainingly  that  we  "  do  not  care  for 
the  old  Madonnas  and  St.  Sebastians,  and  St.  Chris- 
tophers, and  cannot  understand  what  people  see  in 
those  altar-pieces."  Might  we  not  say,  with  equal 
truth,  that  we  do  not  care  for  Hermes  and  Zeus  and 
the  Graces  ?  And  could  we  not  add  with  equal  force, 
that  we  cannot  see  what  the  Greeks  admired  in  those 
stupid  old  Nymphs  and  Yenuses  ?  How  much,  really, 
has  the  name  to  do  with  our  like  or  dislike?  Do  we 
admire  the  "  Marble  Faun  "  because  it  is  a  Faun ; 
and  do  we  love  the  "  Venus  of  Milo  "  because  it  is 
said  to  be  a  Venus  ?  We  are  told  that  this  Enthroned 
Madonna,  for  instance,  is  La  Bella  Simonetta,  posed 
with  a  child  in  her  lap ;  and  that  this  dancing  daugh- 
ter of  Herodias  is  one  of  the  Tornabuoni;  but  what 
does  either  name  really  signify  to  us?  Why  is  not 
each  of  these  women  beautiful  just  as  a  woman,  and 
each  figure  beautiful  merely  as  a  figure? 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  giving  the  name  and 
attributes  of  St.  Barbara  to  a  handsome  figure  by 
Palma  Veechio  hurts  the  picture.     Indeed,  it  helps 


46  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

the  picture  to  those  who  know  and  understand  and 
believe  in  St.  Barbara;  but  for  you  and  for  me  the 
saint  no  longer  lives.  She  is  almost  as  far  removed 
from  our  ken  as  a  Ilathor  or  an  Astartc.  The  literal 
significance  of  statue  and  tabernacle  and  altar-piece 
died  with  those  for  whom  they  wore  executed ;  but 
the  types  and  workmanship  live,  because  the  deatldess 
spirit  of  art  is  still  with  them.  This  is  our  real  quest. 
It  is  not  the  teaching  in  the  altar-piece,  but  the  art 
in  it  that  kettpe-itTrHve  for  us  to-day. 

The  allegories  of  the  time  that  found  their  way 
upon  canvas  are  now  even  more  meaningless  to  us 
than  the  stories  of  the  religious  pictures.  We  may 
read  the  story  of  the  finding  of  the  l)ody  of  St.  Mark 
and  understand  the  meaning  of  Tintoretto's  picture 
(Plate  15)  if  we  will;  but  what  shall  we  make  out 
of  Titian's  so-called  "  Sacred  and  Profane  Love." 
and  Botticelli's  "Spring"?  They  no  doul)t  had  a 
meaning  to  their  painters,  and  were  intelligible  to 
the  people  of  the  time;  but  the  key  in  each  instance 
is  lost,  and  the  tale,  even  to  its  very'  name,  is  no 
longer  read  or  readable.  And  yet  how  very  little  the 
pictures  suffer  by  the  loss.  They  are  to-day  among 
the  most  interesting  canvases  of  those  masters  purely 
and  simply  because  of  their  visible  art — because  of 
what  they  look.  Many  a  picture  by  Rubens  is  none 
the  better  for  our  knowing  what  all  the  mythical  fig- 
ures are  intended  to  represent ;  an<l  that  there  is  some 
confusion  about  the  meaning  of  Rembrandt's  "  Night 


THEMES  OF  THE  MASTERS  47 

Watch  "  seems  to  make  the  picture  none  the  worse. 
We  instinctively  seek  other  qualities  in  the  work  than 
its  literary  or  representative  features.  The  story 
part  of  it,  even  in  a  "  School  of  Athens,"  rather  bores 
us.  We  are  not  disposed  to  bother  with  it;  but  the 
t3rpes__and  characters  and  figures  interest  us.  The 
figures  as  figures  we  shall  speak  about  in  another 
chapter;  but  there  may  be  also  a  legitimate  interest, 
a  real  enough  meaning  for  us,  in  the  types.  They 
are  superb  as  art;  they  are  wonderful  in  character 
and  poise. 

Of  course  all  the  types,  costumes,  buildings,  land- 
scapes in  the  religious  and  allegorical  pictures  by  the 
old  masters  are  native  to  the  land  where  they  were 
painted.  They  represent  a  clime,  a  time,  and  a  peo- 
ple; and  in  that  respect  they  are  illustrative  of  his- 
tory— social,  political,  religious  history.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  illustrative  side  of  art  is  its  best  side, 
or  that  the  painting  which  has  history  for  its  aim 
is  the  best  kind  of  painting;  but  at  least  it  is  to  be 
reckoned  with,  and  it  may  be,  properly  enough,  a 
matter  of  interest  to  the  spectator  of  to-day.  Besides, 
it  is  likely  to  give  us  a  true  view  of  the  painter's  own 
period  and  people.  Those  of  us  who  read  history  out 
of  a  book  get  something  in  narrative  form,  some 
story  reconstructed  by  the  light  of  a  German,  a 
French  or  an  English  imagination.  It  may  be  true 
and  then  again  it  may  be  false.  At  any  rate  it  has 
to  be  rewritten  every  ten  years,  which  would  suggest 


48  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

that  it  is  not  satisfactory  even  to  its  producers. 
Burckiiardt  and  Synionds  and  Tainc  and  Villari  may 
write  about  the  Medici  from  four  different  points  of 
view;  but  a  picture  of  them  by  a  painter  of  the  time, 
from  one  point  of  view,  is  worth  all  four  of  the  others 
put  together.  An  "Adoration"  (Plate  13),  hanging 
in  the  Uffizi,  contains  the  portraits  of  all  the  Medici 
who  figure  in  the  picture  as  the  Magi  and  their  at- 
tendants. There  they  are,  painted  to  the  life,  with 
cap  and  cloak,  sword  and  shoe,  in  the  valley  of  the 
Arno,  surrounded  by  the  light  and  air  of  Italy.  And 
they  were  all  painted  not  by  a  historian  living  four 
hundred  years  after  them,  but  by  Sandro  Botticelli, 
who  lived  with  them  and  painted  them  as  he  saw 
them  in  the  life.  Certainly  there  is  truth — there 
must  be — in  such  a  picture. 

Just  so  with  the  "  Marriage  at  Cana  "  by  Tinto- 
retto. The  figures  seated  about  the  table  are  Italian 
— Venetian  Italian — and  of  the  painter's  own  time. 
The  costumes  and  architecture  are  likewise  of  that 
period  of  splendor,  when  Venice  was  the  crowned 
queen  of  the  Adriatic, 

"  The  revel  of  the  earth,  the  masque  of  Italy." 

It  is  true  to  Venice  and  her  people  as  no  chronicle 
of  the  literary  historian  could  be  true. 

All  the  Venetian  painters  of  the  time,  Titian, 
Giorgione,    Paolo    Veronese,    Bordone,   Pal  ma,    were 


THEMES  OF  THE  MASTERS  49 

bearing  similar  witness  to  the  glory  of  Venice,  and 
writing  true  enough  history  with  the  paint  brush. 
At  the  north  Eubens  and  Eembrandt  (Plate  27) 
and  Steen  and  Terburg  and  Pieter  de  Hooch  (Plate 
29)  were  doing  the  same  thing  for  Flanders  and 
Holland.  No  matter  what  the  subject  given  them, 
they  pictured  their  own  people.  Rembrandt's  "  Sup- 
per at  Emmaus "  shows  three  poor  Dutchmen  of 
the  lower  classes  in  Amsterdam ;  and  Eubens  at  Ant- 
werp paints  the  "  Three  Graces  "  as  Flemish  women, 
and  Paris  he  croi^Tis  with  a  flat  Flemish  hat.  You 
could  not,  by  any  chance,  get  truer  pictures  of  lands 
and  races  and  costumes  than  in  these  canvases. 

But  now  you  come  forward  with  an  objection  and 
say  that  the  "  School  of  Athens  "  may  be  true  to 
Italy,  but  is  false  to  Athens  and  the  Greeks;  that 
Botticelli's  "  Adoration  "  may  be  true  to  the  Medici, 
but  is  false  to  the  biblical  characters;  that  Eem- 
brandt paints  Dutchmen  instead  of  Palestinian 
types,  and  that  Eubens  makes  the  Olympian  gods 
ridiculous  by  supposing  them  to  be  Flemish.  You 
object  still  further  to  anachronisms  of  dress,  archi- 
tecture, and  landscape,,  and  insist  that  chronology  is 
not  regarded. 

Yes ;  that  is  all  quite  true.  Your  objection  can  be 
sustained.  I  can  think  of  only  one  picture  in  Italian 
art  where  Jewish  types  appear  in  a  biblical  scene. 
It  is  in  the  Louvre — Lotto's  "  Woman  taken  in  Adul- 
tery " — and  I  do  not  know  that  even  that  is  quite 


50  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

true  to  type  and  costume.  They  wore  probably  Vene- 
tian Jews,  for  Lotto  painted  precisely  what  he  saw 
before  him,  like  all  the  old  masters.  It  is  not  likely 
that  he  or  they  could  have  painted  anything  else  had 
they  tried.  Perhaps  it  was  better  so.  Had  Cor- 
reggio  and  Leonardo  and  Diirer  and  Jan  Van  Eyck 
gone  prowling  into  the  past  for  archaeological  types 
and  correct  costumes,  we  might  have  had  something 
as  accurate,  as  enipt>v  and  «t^-8tiipid  as  the  pictures 
by  Tissot ;  but  we  should  not  have  had  Italian  or 
German  or  Flemish  art. 

Many  of  the  modern  painters  have  tried  this 
reconstruction  of  the  past  on  canvas,  and  have  abun- 
dantly demonstrated  what  a  soulless  heaping  together 
of  bric-a-brac  it  may  become.  Alma-Tadcma's  pict- 
ures of  Greek  temples  and  houses  and  peoples  or 
Holman  Hunt's  reconstruction  of  Jewish  life  in  the 
time  of  Christ,  are  examples  to  the  point.  They 
are  unbelieval)lo,  impossible  things,  simply  because 
their  authors  did  not  feel  them,  di<l  not  really  be- 
lieve in  them.  They  never  saw  what  they  painted, 
as  a  whole,  as  a  life;  they  merely  picked  up  dis- 
jointed fragments  here  and  there  and  tried  to  re- 
construct a  dead  past  from  a  collection  of  museum 
curiosities.  The  value  of  the  old  masters'  work  was 
that  they  did  see  the  life  they  painted,  knew  it  in- 
timately, believed  in  it,  loved  it.  were  proud  of  it. 

It  seems  as  though  much  of  the  time  and  patience 
given  to  archaeological  details  by,  say,  the  Englisli 


XV.— TINTORETTO,   Finding  Body  of  St.  Mark.     Brera,   Milan. 


THEMES  OF  THE  MASTERS  51 

Pre-Eaphaclites  was  wasted,  misapplied.    The  strain- 
ing for  exactness  in  a  belt  or  a  button  to  astonish  a 
I'hilistine  is  counterbalanced  by  the  objection  of  the 
hypercritical  Jew  that,  after  all,  the  second  toe  of 
Joseph  has  not  been  made  longer  than  the  others, 
and  that  the  latchet  of  the  sandal  is  not  correct. 
The  grasp  at  the  little  things  of  fact  is  a  gain  in 
trifles,  while  the  spirit  of  the  whole — the  sense  of 
reality,  of  something  that  the  painter  has  actually 
seen — is  lost.     Suppose  Carpaccio  in  his  St.  Ursula 
pictures  had  tried  to  paint  all  his  figures  in  Eoman 
garb  and  of  a  Eoman  type,  should  we  not  have  had 
something  similar  in  a  way  to  the  dreary -Greek -and 
Eoman  canvases  of  David^nd  his  following?     As 
it  is,  we  are  interested  in  Carpaccio's  pictures  to-day, 
for  one  reason,  because  they  show  the  local  color- 
ing of  fifteenth-century  A^enice,  show  it  with  hon- 
esty, frankness,  and  truthfulness.     They  are  superb 
in  types  and  costumes  and  architecture  (Plate  14). 
As    for    David,    there    is   his    fine    "  Coronation    of 
Josephine "  in  the  Louvre,  which  makes  one  wish 
he  had  never  tried  to  galvanize  into  life  the  dead 
Eomans.     Why  is  it  so  much  better  than  his  "  Sa- 
bines,"  if  not  that  he  saw  and  felt  and  realized  the 
one,  and  that  he  did  not  see  and  could  not  feel  or 
realize  the  other? 

The  application  may  be  made  to  the  historical 
painting  of  to-day  with  equal  force.  An,_actual  oc- 
currence as  seen  and  painted  by  a  Bonnat  or  a  Cour- 


52  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

bet  is  worth  a  dozen  ideal  abstractions  named 
*'  Medea  "  or  "  Cleopatra  "'  by  Lei'ebvre  or  Bougue- 
reau.  Even  an  ill-drawn,  badly  painted  battle  by  a 
Verestchagin  has  its  interest,  because  the  painter  saw 
it;  but  a  Eoman  arena  with  lions  and  Christian 
martyrs,  carefully  painted  and  exactly  drawn  by  a 
Gerome,  is  merely  something  conjured  up  out  of  a 
classical  dictionary — something  that  took  time  and 
trouble  to  accomplish,  no  doubt,  but  something  want- 
ing in  life  and  inspiration.  No  ;  the  value  of  a  nation's 
art  is,  primarily,  that  it  represents  it&  own  time  and 
people.  If  Greek  art  had  harked  back  to  Egyptian 
times,  and  Italian  art  devoted  itself  to  an  exposition 
of  biblical  archaeology,  they  would  have  had  small 
value  in  art  history  to-day.  Anachronisms  in  the  pic- 
ture may  be  incongruous,  chronology  may  be  badly 
distorted,  and  at  times  even  ridiculous;  but  the  loss 
is  more  than  compensated  for  by  gaining  the  truth 
of  what  the  painter  actually  saw. 

You  will  value  this  truth  more  when  you  come  to 
study  the  portraits  scattered  through  the  European 
galleries.  They,  again,  mean  little  to  us,  for  many 
of  them  are  nameless.  Wo  do  not  know  this  proud 
lord  or  that  fair  lady.  Their  titles  have  perished 
from  memory,  and  all  we  have  in  the  catalogue  is 
an  "  Unknown  Man  "  or  an  "  Unknown  Lady."  But 
how  very  impressive  are  the  types!  The  painter  saw 
them  in  the  life;  he  did  not  guess  at  their  person- 
alities.    There  is  Moroni's  "  Tailor,"  which  is  noth- 


> 


< 

Q 


X 
X 


THEMES  OF  THE  MASTERS  53 

ing  but  a  portrait,  Antoncllo  da  Messina's  "  Un- 
known Man  "  in  the  Louvre,  Titian's  "  Man  with  the 
Glove,"  Eembrandt's  "  Staalmeesters,"  Van  Dyck's 
"  Van  der  Geest  " —  alL^seea-ift-tlKrltfe,  And  what 
splendid  representatives  of  their  land  and  people 
they  are !  With  what  supreme  command  and  repose 
this  Doge  looks  at  you,  with  what  dignity  this  sena- 
tor or  warrior  carries  himself,  with  what  grace  and 
loveliness  this  lady  pauses  in  her  walk  and  stands 
gazing  from  the  canvas !  It  may  lend  a  slight  in- 
terest to  know  that  we  are  looking  at  the  Doge 
Loredano  or  one  of  the  Morosini  or  the  Duchess  of 
Urbino  (Plate  3) ;  but  the  real  charm  of  the  picture 
lies  in  the  type  and  the  nobility  of  the  carriage. 

We  are  now  perhaps  coming  a  little  nearer  to  the 
meaning  of  these  old  masters.  They  count  for  much 
in  art  because  of  their  fine  types,  their  wonderful 
dignity  and  repose,  their  grace  and  charm  and  loveli- 
ness, and  their  profound  truth.  We  may  add  other 
qualities  of  a  lofty  nature,  such  as  power  4n  Michael 
Angelo  or  imagination  in  Tiatoxetto  or  infinite  grace 
in  .Leonardo  or  supreme  spleador  in  Paolo.  Veronese 
or  world-wide  pathos  in  Eembrandt.  N'or  should 
we  overlook  the  earnestness,  the  honesty,  the  frank- 
ness that  seemed  to  be  characteristic  of  almost  every 
painter  in  the  schools.  No  matter  what  the  subject, 
the  Bellinis,  the  Carpaccios,  the  Ghirlandajos  (Plate 
16),  the  Van  Eycks,  the  Clouets,  the  Diirers,  always 
painted  with  sincerity.     There   is   an   "  I  believe " 


54  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

written  across  all  their  works  which  no  one  can  fail 
to  respect  and  admire. 

As  a  result  of  that  "  I  believe  "  the  old  painters 
came  to  have  what  has  been  called  "  feeling  "  al)out 
their  subjects ;  and  this  "  feeling  "  foumTits  'way  into 
their  pictures,  and  is  apparent  even  in  their  work- 
manship. We  speak  of  it  to-day  as  "  religious  feel- 
ing,'' and  insist  upon  it  that  it  has  to  do  solely  with 
the  sentiment  of  religion;  but  it  appears  in  profane 
subjects  and  in  portraits  as  well  as  altar-pieces.  Fil- 
ippino,  Costa,  Francia,  Lorenzo  di  Credi  show  it  in 
all  themes ;  Botticelli  has  it  in  his  Madonna,  but  also 
in  his  "  Pallas  "  and  in  his  "  Venus  " ;  Perugino  de- 
picts it  upon  angel  faces,  but  also  upon  the  faces  of 
the  people  of_Pcrwgia.  Perhaps  it  had  better  be  con- 
sidered in  some  measure  an  expression  of  the  paint- 
er's sinceriiy.  It  is  a  pliase,  a  manifestation  of  the 
earnestness,  the  intensity  of  purpose,  that  abounded 
in  the  workshops  of  the  Renaissance.  With  other 
finalities  that  I  have  mentioned  it  may  suggest  one 
distinct  message,  at  least,  that  the  old  masters  may 
have  for  us — the  message  of  faith  and  truth. 


/)      i^        CHAPTER   Y-^ 
WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

The  pictures  by  the  old  masters  that  line  the  walls 
of  the  European  galleries,  as  we  have  already  con- 
cluded, were  not  painted  for  us,  were  not  meant  for 
tourists  and  art  students  and  twentieth-century  con- 
noisseurs with  jaded  appetites.  All  the  Madonnas 
and  Magdalenes  and  Dianas  of  the  Italian  painters, 
with  their  portraits  of  lords  and  ladies,  belong  to  a 
by-gone  age;  and  our  sympathy  with  them  can  go 
little  further  than  an  admiration  for  a  type  or  a 
liking  for  a  sentiment.  But  if  the  subjects  are  ob- 
solete the  skill  of  the  artist  still  lives,  the  workman- 
ship of  the  pictures  is  still  of  vital  interest.  They 
may  mean  little  to  us,  but  they  look  superb  things. 
For  the  old  masters  were  excellent  craftsmen — ^bet- 
ter, if  perhaps  less  complex,  than  the  masters  of  to- 
day. They  wrought  with  knowledge  and  taste,  as 
well  as  with  sincerity;  and  it  was  their  grasp  of 
craftsmanship,  their  ability  to  execute  as  well  as 
plan,  that  made  possible  the  splendid  art  of  the 
Renaissance. 

In  Italy,  every  painter  had  to  serve  an  apprentice- 
ship under  the  rules  of  the  guilds.     He  began  as  a 

65 


56  STUDIES  IN  PICTURES 

boy  in  the  bottega  or  workshop,  and  was,  perhaps, 
not  a  master  painter  until  he  was  a  full-grown  man. 
He  was  there  taught,  not  to  paint  pretty  faces  or  af- 
fecting stories,  but  to  prepare  panels  and  gesso  back- 
grounds, to  grind  colors,  lay  gold,  beat  metal,  model 
plaster,  fill  spaces  with  orn«niHiiial  pat  inns  and  fig- 
ures. He  learned  the  guild  traditions  of  litness  and 
proportion,  color  harmony,  decorative  circct.  When 
he  left  the  hottega  to  work  for  himself  he  was  a 
skilled  workman  with  a  knowledge  of  materials  and 
methods — a  man  who  could  do  almost  anything  in 
his  department. 

Perhaps  the  first  order  that  came  to  him  was  from 
some  church  that  asked  him  to  paint  a  picture  in 
a  lunette  or  half-arch  over  a  door.  The  church  peo- 
ple wanted  the  empty  space  filled  with  something 
ornamental.  As  for  tlic  subject  an  "  Annunciation  " 
would  probably  be  called  for  on  account  of  its  popu- 
larity. 

With  the  "  Annunciation  "  for  a  theme  it  might  be 
thought  that  the  painter  would  "  read  up  "  on  his  sub- 
ject to  get  all  the  details  correct,  then  seek  out  some 
sweet-faced  girl  for  a  Madonna,  and  her  brown-eyed 
little  brother  for  an  angel,  and  finally,  after  casting 
himself  into  a  religious  ecstasy,  paint  the  picture  in 
an  inspirational  trance.  Such  is  sometimes  fancied 
to  be  the  manner  of  painting  great  pictures;  but 
nothing  could  be  furtlier  removed  from  the  actual 
truth.    The  painter  would  never  forget  for  a  moment 


XVII.— BENOZZO    GOZZOLI,   Head  of  Lorenzo  de'   Medici   (detail). 
Riccardi   Palace,   Florence. 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS      57 

that  there  was  a  space  to  be  filled  with  something 
beautiful  to  look  at — something  decorative  and  ap- 
propriate to  a  half-arch  over  a  door.  There  would 
be  forms  as  forms  and  colors  as  colors  to  be  treated. 
They  would  demand  pictorial  arrangement,  and  what 
names  the  priests  and  brothers  chose  to  give  them 
afterward  would  be  of  no  great  moment  to  the 
painter.  Perhaps  the  disposition  of  the  figures  would 
place  the  Madonna  kneeling  at  the  right,  the  outline 
of  her  curved  back  and  bowed  head  following  the 
upward  sweep  of  the  half-arch.  The  angel  with  the 
message  would  be  opposite  the  Madonna,  kneeling; 
and  with  lilies  in  hand  and  bent  figure  comple- 
menting the  opposite  curve  of  the  arch.  In  between 
the  figures  might  be  the  desk  at  which  the  Virgin 
was  praying,  the  white  dove,  a  door  opening  at  the 
back  upon  a  landscape,  and  in  the  distance  the  towers 
and  domes  of  fair  Florence.  As  for  coloring,  cool 
blues  and  greens  might  balance  warm  reds  and  yel- 
lows, and  neutral  tones  of  dull  orange,  red,  lilac, 
brown,  gray,  might  mingle  to  make  a  composition 
harmonious  to  the  eye. 

And  through  all  the  work,  from  start  to  finish, 
would  be  employed  the  greatest  skill  and  the  richest 
and  best  materials.  The  halo  about  the  Madonna's 
head  might  be  of  gjlded  mosaic,  or  of  radiant  lines 
cut  through^laid,  gold ;  the  lights  upon  her  hair,  and 
the  lines  upon  her  floating  veil,  might  be  given  again 
in  threads  of  gold ;  and  the  pattern  of  her  dress,  the 


58  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

border  of  her  robe,  might  be  touched  with  the  same 
precious  metal.  Every  color  would  be  quite  perfect 
in  its  purity,  and  every  pattern  of  embroidery  de- 
lightful in  its  design.  The  angel,  too,  would  perhaps 
have  wings  with  golden  peacock  eyes  upon  tliein,  as 
in  the  Eiccardi  frescoes  of  Benozzo,  a  crown  of  glory, 
bright  with  jewels,  upon  the  head,  and  garments  of 
wondrous  light  and  gorgeous  borderings.  The  white 
dove,  with  its  trail  of  sunlight,  the  doorway,  with  its 
inlays  of  colored  marble,  the  mosaic  pavement,  and 
the  distant  city,  with  its  domes  and  campanili  shin- 
ing in  the  sun,  would  perhaps  complete  the  picture. 

As  a  result,  you  might  have  something  so  beauti- 
ful as  decoration,  so  appropriate  in  its  architectural 
niche,  so  attractive  just  for  what  it  looked,  that  you 
would  not  think  about  what  it  meant,  any  more  than 
you  would  ask  the  meaning  of  the  mosaics  in  the 
domes  of  San  Marco  at  Venice.  At  least,  if  you 
saw  such  a  picture  to-day  in  such  a  place,  you  should 
be  able  to  admire  it  and  understand  it  regardless 
of  its  being  an  "  Annunciation,"  regardless  of  its 
being  a  church  picture,  regardless  of  its  having  a 
S}Tnbolic  meaning  of  any  kind. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  exquisite 
workmanship  or  the  beauty  of_the -Biaterials  used 
by  the  Italians  of  the  Early  Renaissance.  In  the 
little  chapel  of  the  old  Medici  palace  (now  called 
the  Eiccardi)  at  Florence  there  is  an  "  Adoration 
of  the  Magi  "  by   Benozzo  Gozzoli,  covering  three 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD   MASTERS       59 

walls  of  the  room,  and  showing  the  Magi  and  their 
attendants  with  horses  and  leopards  and  dogs  wind- 
ing through  a  valley  landscape  up  to  the  stable  where 
the   Child   was  laid.     Unfortunately  the  Madonna 
and  Child,  originally  on  the  fourth  wall,  have  been 
taken  away;  but  the  other  three  walls  are  almost 
as  perfect  in  condition  as  when  originally  painted. 
Along  them  a  grand  procession  of  richly  garmented 
Florentines,  with  caparisoned  steeds,  moves  in  glitter- 
ing splendor.    Many  of  the  people  are  portraits  from 
life,  and  all  have  a  character  and  dignity,  a  nobility 
of  bearing  that  make  one  wonder  (Plate  17).    They 
move  like  kings  and  princes,  and  are  really  impres- 
sive for  what  they  represent.     But  aside  from  that, 
aside   from  any  meaning  the  fresco   may   have  as 
religion  or  as  history,  the  mechanical  workmanship 
of  it  is  as  perfect  as  a  piece  of  cloisonne.     The  pat- 
terns of  brocade,  the  embroideries  of  the  mantles, 
the  reliefs  of  spur  and  bridle  and  sword  in  gilded 
stucco  are  superb  in  their  design  and  their  richness. 
It  is  to-day  an  amazing  fresco,  and  yet,  when  done, 
it  was  perhaps  not  more  amazing  than  any  other 
work  of  the  time.     It  has  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  well  preserved — that  is  about  all. 

There  is  hardly  an  Italian  picture  of  the  Eenais- 
sance  time  or  before  that  will  not  show  similar  ma- 
terial beauties-©f-^werfenanship.  The  early  distem- 
per panels  of  the  Byzantine  and  Eomanesque  periods, 
wretched  as  the  figures  were  in  drawing,  perspective. 


60  STUDIES   I.\    PICTURES 

light  and  shade,  and  ignorant  as  the  painters  were 
of  landscape,  of  blue  sky  and  sunlight,  were  never- 
theless masterpieces  of  artistic  method.  The  gold 
grounds  with  their  incised  designs,  the  boautifiil 
aureoles  and  halos,  the  jewelled  and  gilded  reliefs, 
the  coloring  and  patterning  of  robes,  the  borderings 
of  chairs  and  tables,  the  arabesques  of  fruits  and 
flowers,  were  wrougUtwi4l*-«n  exactness  and  an  hon- 
esty unparalleled  in  the  history  of  art. 

This  splendid  workmanshij)  in  gold  and  colors  was 
carried  on  and  down  in  Italian  art  as  a  tradition. 
In  Florence  all  the  Giotto  followers  practised  it ; 
Gentile  da  Fabriano,  Fra  Angelico,  Benozzo  Gozzoli 
continued  to  u.se  it  into  the  Early  Renaissance;  and 
at  the  north  the  Vivarini  of  ]\Iurano  showed  it  in  the 
gilded  altar-pieces  made  for  the  A'cnetian  churche.'i 
before  the  time  of  Titian  and  Giorgione.  Some  of 
these  altar-pieces,  still  existent  in  Venice,  are  to-day 
little  short  of  marvellous  in  the  proportions  of  their 
framing,  the  fineness  of  the  gilding,  and  the  pattern- 
ing and  coloring  of  the  garments  (Plates  18  and  19). 
The  painter  in  those  days  was  a  master  craftsman  at 
least. 

When  the  Early  Renaissance  came  in,  and  people 
began  to  look  more  at  nature  and  think  more  about 
realism  in  art,  the  gilded  halos  and  jewelling  began 
to  disappear.  Botticelli  still  used  gold  to  line  a  robe 
<tr  touch  the  hair  or  the  veil  of  the  Madonna,  but  he 
had  begun  to  see  other  beauties  in  form   ami   color 


XVlll.— VIVARINI,  Altar-piece.     S.  Zaccaria,  Venice. 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD   MASTERS       61 

that  were  quite  as  material,  yet  quite  as  beautiful, 
as  gilding.  He  had  fallen  in. love  with  flowers,  gar- 
lands, trees,  fruits,  twining  vines,  flowing  draperies, 
willowy  figures.  Look  once  more  at  the  "  Spring  " 
in  the  Florence  Academy  (Plate  20).  Never  mind 
about  its  meaning,  and  do  not  bother  with  the  so- 
called  Graces  or  the  Mercury,  as  such.  Let  the 
whole  allegory  take  care  of  itself,  and  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  gorgeous  dress  the  figure  called  Flora 
is  wearing.  Have  you  ever  seen  anything  more  beau- 
tiful? And  when  you  have  finished  with  that  pat- 
tern, look  at  the  white  fleecy  drapery  of  the  Graces, 
the  gold-dotted  garment  of  the  Mercury,  the  flowers 
spattered  along  the  foreground,  the  fruits  and  foliage 
of  the  background. 

In  the  Uffizi  you  will  find  his  "Madonna  and 
Angels  "  called  "  II  Magnificat " ;  but,  again,  do  not 
be  content  with  the  sad  faces  and  the  pathetic  sen- 
timent. Look  at  the  dresses,  the  borderings,  the 
veils,  the  golden  .cuown,  the  beautiful  coloring.  In 
the  Pitti  there  is  his  "Pallas,"  but  once  more  let 
the  classic  story  take  care  of  itself,  and  the  wistful 
face  of  Pallas  go  unexplained.  In  their  places  look 
at  the  vine-and-branch  design  upon  the  bodice  of 
the  Pallas  and  the  wreath  about  the  head.  You  have 
never  seen — you  probably  never  will  see  again — such 
common  things  in  nature  so  beautifully  handled  in 
art.  Believe  me,  this  is  art  at  its  very  best,  in  its 
most  naive  and  soulful  utterance.     It  is  decorative 


62  STUDIES  IN  PICTURES 

art,  and  Botticelli  was  concerned  that  it  should  deco- 
rate in  tlie  same  way  as  a  spiral  of  well-wrought  iron 
or  a  branch  of  beaten  gold.  Yet  when  one  can  see 
and  say  so  much  about  simple  things,  is  that  not 
also  expressive  art?  It  does  not  tell  you  anything 
of  religion,  love,  or  patriotism ;  but  it  tells  you  some- 
thing about  the  look  of  leaf  and  branch  that  you 
probably  never  knew  before. 

As  the  Kenaissance  moved  on  to  its  height,  painters 
began  to  see  other  beauties  in  the  world  besides  spring 
flowers,  arabesques  of  fruits,  and  fleecy  draperies. 
They  began  to  study  the  humanjigure  and  to  see  that 
there  was  beauty  in  its  structure,  its  fitness,  its  pro- 
portions, its  movement,  its  coloring.  The  early  men 
had  made  a  start  at  drawing  it,  but  their  effort, 
though  naive,  was  awkward  and  incomplete,  as  you 
may  see  in  the  "  Venus  "  of  Lorenzo  di  Credi  in  the 
Uffizi.  Tt  was  Raphael  who  carried  to  perfection  its 
grace  of  oiulline  and  action  in  his  "  School  of 
Athens  "  in  the  Vatican,  for  instance,  or  his  Psyche 
decorations  in  the  Villa  Farnesina.  Never  mind  the 
Athens  or  the  Psyche  part  of  it,  Imt  look  at  the  fig- 
ures as  figures,  and  you  will  see  what  he  .sought  for. 
Michael  Angelo,  after  Masaccio,  discovered  the  ma- 
jestic strength  of  the  human  form  and  pictured  that 
to  perfection,  as  witnesses  his  "  Creation  of  Adam  " 
on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistino  Chapel.  Again  dismiss 
from  thought  the  name  and  the  meaning  of  it  and 
look  only  at  the  figure.     And  so,  if  you  will  look  at 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS       63 

the  "  Mona  Lisa,"  forgetting  all  about  her  story,  and, 
thinking  only  of  her  face  and  features,  you  may  see 
in  that  sadly  injured  picture  what  the  third  great 
Florentine,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  found  to  be  beautiful 
in  humanity.  The  lovely  contours  of  the  neck,  the 
delicate  modellings  of  the  cheeks,  the  recesses  of  the 
eyes  are  still  suffused  with  Leonardo's  wonderful 
light-and-shade,  his  famous  "  sfumato." 

Farther  to  the  north,  at  Parma,  was  Correggio, 
who  saw  still  other  beauties  in  the  figure.  His  men 
and  women  that  bear  Christian  or  classic  names  show 
wonderful  grace  of  line,  wonderful  movement,  won- 
derful light-and-shade;  but  to  these  he  added  also 
wonderful  color.  Giorgione  at  Venice,  at  the  same 
time  and  with  the  same  qualities,  color  included, 
was  not  less  remarkable.  The  so-called  "  Sleeping 
Venus "  in  the  Dresden  Gallery  will  furnish  the 
proof.  It  is  probably  not  a  Venus.  No  one  knows 
who  or  what  the  figure  represented  at  one  time;  but 
any  one,  at  any  time,  can  see  that  as  a  figure  it  is 
easily  the  most  beautiful  nude  in  the  whole  realm  of 
pictorial  art.  And  at  Amsterdam  was  Eembrandt, 
still  another  painter  looking  at  the  world  through  a 
prism  and  seeing  objects  fading  from  light  and  color 
into  the  mystery  of  deep  shadow.  His  battered 
"  Night  Watch "  is  eloquent  of  it ;  and  every  por- 
trait, figure  piece,  and  landscape  by  him  is  a  revela- 
tion of  it.  Call  them  by  what  name  3^ou  please,  but 
the  pictures  of  all  these  men  reveal  what  their  paint- 


64  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

crs  intended  them  to  reveal;  and  Corrcggio,  Giorgi- 
one,  and  Kenibrandt  never  painted  any  canvases,  at 
any  time,  without  first  planning  a  decorative  effect  in 
light,  ^^hade,  and  color. 

The  Venetian  school  of  painting  has  always  been 
placed  above  the  Florentine.  Pictorial  art  reached 
its  climax  in  the  city  of  the  sea.  Why?  Because  it 
was  more  intellectual  or  illustrative  of  history  or  re- 
ligious or  sentimental  or  fetching  from  a  literary 
point  of  view  than  art  elsewhere?  Not  at  all. 
Venice  was  below  Florence  in  those  qualities,  but 
above  Florence  in  richness  and  splendor.  Titian, 
Tintoretto,  Paolo  Veronese,  Bordone,  Tiepolo  were 
the  greatest  in  decorative  effect  of  all  the  Italian 
painters.  Line  and  form  and  light  and  color;  gor- 
geous stuffs,  rich  robes,  shining  armor,  gold  and 
jewels,  magnificent  types,  fine  figures,  noble  land- 
scapes, lofty  architecture — all  things  that  Italy  had 
discovered  in  nature  and  in  art  were  blended  at 
Venice.  The  final  harmony  of  the  Eenaissance  was 
reached  there.  And  again  it  should  be  insisted  upon 
that  the  harmony  was  perhaps  more  material  and 
purely  decorative  than  expressive  or  intellectual. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  point  out  this  decora- 
tive aim  in  the  works  of  Diirer,  Holbein.  Rubens, 
Pieter  de  Hooch,  Velasquez,  Watteau,  Oainsbornugh. 
The  filling  of  space  with  beautiful  things,  beautifully 
wrought,  continued  as  a  tradition  even  after  the  de- 
cline of  the  Eenaissance.     True  enough,  spandrels, 


XIX.— VIVARINI,   Altar-piece  (detail).     Venice  Academy. 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS       65 

lunettes,  domes,  and  ceilings  were  no  longer  used 
so  extensively  as  a  ground  for  decoration.  The  so- 
called  easel  picture  came  into  vogue.  Religious 
painting  passed  out  in  favor  of  portraiture,  historical 
pieces,  and  genre.  But  the  subject  has  never  at  any 
time  changed  the  painter's  point  of  view;  and  as  for 
the  space  to  be  filled,  whether  it  is  a  square  of  canvas 
in  a  gold  frame  or  a  triangle  of  wall,  it  has  to  be 
treated  in  the  same  decorative  manner. 

That  idea  has  always  held  in  the  studios.  Pieter 
de  Hooch's  Dutch  cavaliers,  and  Watteau's  courtiers 
of  the  Eegency  are  primarily  pegs  upon  which  to 
hang  gay  color  and  warm  light ;  and  a  "  Charles  I " 
by  Van  Dyck,  or  a  "  Mrs.  Graham  "  by  Gainsbor- 
ough, though  it  represents  an  actual  person,  and  is 
a  true  enough  portrait,  is  also  a  panel  of  beautifully 
arranged  color  and  light-and-shade.  A  landscape  by 
Corot,  or  an  interior  by  Decamps  deals  with  the  same 
problem.  An  evening  view  along  the  Seine  may 
give  us  the  feeling  of  the  sunset  hour  and  have  all 
the  sentiment  of  twilight  and  the  poetry  of  repose 
about  it;  but  in  its  construction  Corot  never  forgot 
for  a  moment  the  problem  of  space-filling,  branch- 
and-bough  drawing,  light,  shade,  color.  Just  so  with 
Diaz  and  Troyon.  Though  one  painted  forest  in- 
teriors and  the  other  cattle  of  the  fields,  the  decora- 
tive necessity  and  the  picture-making  instinct  were 
still  with  them.  They  insisted  always  that  things 
should  looh  something  as  well  as  mean  something. 


fifi  STUDIES    IN    PICTURES 

The  same  decorative  sense  in  painting  is  dominant 
to  this  day.  Painters  are  still  striving  to  make  their 
pictures  look  beautiful  by  new  materials,  new  tech- 
nique, new  mctliods,  new  mediums.  Mr.  Sargent's 
ceiling  in  the  Boston  Public  Library,  the  subject  of 
which  you  do  not  understand  and  which  is  really 
a  jumble  of  all  subjects  in  past  art,  is  a  good  illus-: 
tration  of  this.  Its  meaning  may  be  dismissed  as 
meaningless,  but  how  superb  are  its  materials  in 
colors  and  gold !  Its  composition  is  huddled  by  a 
strange  desire  to  paint  all  the  gods  of  all  time  in 
one  picture ;  but  how  magnificent  is  the  drawing  and 
painting  of  the  single  figiires — the  beautifid  Astarte, 
for  instance!  The  "  Misses  Hunter,"  which  you  saw 
at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition,  is  a  portrait  group;  but 
there  again  Mr.  Sargent  strove  for  beautiful  effects 
in  grouping,  drawing,  coloring,  lighting.  Almost  all 
his  portraits  arc  so  planned  and  so  executed. 

And  all  painters  at  the  present  day,  as  in  the  past, 
are  striving  in  their  pictures  to  paint  beauties  that 
can  be  seen.  Even  the  Impressionists,  who  are  popu- 
larly but  erroneously  supposed  to  be  the  apostles  of 
ugliness,  are  so-mindod.  riaudr  ^fonot  has  for  years 
brf>n  trying  to  show  you  ibo  beauty  of  sunligb.t,  col- 
ored air,  and  colored  sliadows  upon  haystacks,  Kourn 
Cathedral,  and  Westminster  Towers ;  but  you  worry 
about  Rouen  and  Westminster  and  what  they  mean, 
and  never  see  the  sunlight,  the  air,  or  the  shadow. 

Lest  you  misunderstand,  perhaps  it  should  be  said 


XX.— BOTTICELLI,  Spring  (detail).     Academy,  Florence. 


WORKMANSHIP  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS       67 

again  that  subject  and  meaning  in  painting  are  by 
no  means  to  be  despised.  Ideas  in  art,  the  significance 
of  things,  must  always  exist  to  lend  coherence;  but, 
as  I  have  tried  to  explain,  these  may  be  perishable 
features.  They  keep  slipping  away  like  the  teaching 
of  the  "  Sistine  Madonna  "  or  the  story  in  Botticelli's 
"  Spring,"  leaving  only  the  figures^^the  colors,  the 
workmanship  behind.  These  latter,  which  make  up 
the  material  and  decorative  look  of  the  picture,  are 
the  enduring  features.  They  live  for  us  to-day  in 
a  decorative  sense  if  we  will  but  accept  them  and 
look  at  them  in  the  proper  way. 

So  it  is  that  the  painter — the  artist-workman  as 
distinguished  from  the  pietist  or  the  historian  or  the 
novelist  with  the  paint  brush — must  be  reckoned  with 
in  all  our  study  of  art.  Heretofore  in  history  and 
criticism  he  has  been  overlooked  in  favor  of  some 
teller  of  a  pretty  story  or  some  recorder  of  a  pretty 
face.  But  the  work  cannot  be  properly  understood 
without  considering  the  worker;  and  while  we  are 
studying  pictures  in  the  gallery  we  should  not  fail 
to  regard  art  from  the  artist's  point  of  view,  and  give 
the  decorative  the  consideration  it  deserves. 


STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 
PART  II 


CHAPTER   VL-  ^ 

FIGURE  PAINTING  (]  /- 

We  may  now  leave  generalizations  and  speak  spe- 
cifically of  the  kind  of  pictures  that  one  meets  with 
in  the  various  galleries.  Pictures  are  divisible  into 
groups,  and  may  be  treated  according  to  the  themes 
they  present.  The  groups  are  generally  spoken  of 
as  figure  pieces,  historical  canvases,  portraits,  land- 
scapes, still-life,  and  the  like.  Of  these  there  will 
be  found  in  almost  every  collection  a  predominance 
of  figure  pictures.  Humanity  has  always  been  more 
interested  in  itself  than  in  anything  else ;  and  artists, 
from  the  beginning  of  history,  have  been  busy  per- 
petuating the  likeness  of  their  own  people,  and  re- 
cording with  chisel  and  paint  brush  the  doings  of 
their  own  race.  It  is  a  piece  of  egoism  with  which 
it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  quarrel.  Besides,  with 
the  human  figure  for  a  subject,  many  things  of  im- 
portance have  been  said,  some  of  them  wise,  some 
of  them  splendid,  some  of  them  powerful,  some  of 
them  graceful.  Yes:  and  a  great  many  foolish 
things  have  been  said  also.  There  were  shallow  old 
masters,  as  there  are  silly  young  masters,  and  no- 
where is  the  gallery  of  art  of  uniform  excellence 

71 


72  STUDIES    IX    PICTURES 

from  entrance  to  exit.  We  must  use  discrimination 
in  what  we  admire,  and  some  pictures  should  per- 
haps be  passed  by  with  no  admiration  whatever. 

The  narrative  or  story  that  is  told  liy  a  picture 
need  not  keep  us  long.  That  is  not  what  I  meant  by 
the  "  thing  said."  With  a  piece  of  coal  on  a  white- 
wa.-^hed  wall  any  one  can,  after  a  fashion,  tell  the  tale 
of  the  Nativity  or  the  Crucifixion  or  Achilles  in  his 
Tent  or  Charlotte  Corday  in  Prison ;  but  the  telling 
of  it  would  not  necessarily  make  art.  There  are  pic- 
tures of  battles,  of  princely  pageants,  of  coronations 
and  marriages,  of  Niebelungen  happenings,  and  Holy 
Grail  incidents,  wherein  all  the  facts  are  faithfully 
set  forth;  and  there  are  interiors  with  seventeenth- 
century  cavaliers  playing  at  cards,  or  twentieth-cen- 
tury 3'oung  women  seated  at  gossip;  t)ut  again,  in 
either  or  in  any  case,  the  story  told  is  not  the  pic- 
ture. It  is  not  ditBcult  to  draw  with  measurable 
success,  a  man  in  Empire  uniform  standing  on  a 
ship's  deck,  and  to  call  the  result  "  Napoleon  on  the 
Bellerophon  " ;  but  to  draw  and  paint  a  figure  that 
stands  and  looks  and  ii^thfe-dethroned  emperor,  as 
Orchardson  has  done,  that  is  quite  another  thing. 
That  a  figure  .should  have  defimte_character  is  vitally 
important. 

It  is  this  very  quality  of  character  in  the  figure, 
when  forcibly  given,  that  brings  conviction  as  truth, 
and  creatos  a  sense  not  only  of  reality  but  of  beauty. 
And  character  does  not  rest  alone  in  a  scowling  brow 


UJ 

_1 


X 


FIGURE  PAINTING  73 

or  a  furrowed  clieek.  I  shall  have  something  to  say 
about  that  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the  portrait; 
but  there  may  be  a  portraiture  of  the  figure  quite  as 
effective  as  of  the  face,  and  character  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  finger  tips  as  well  as  in  nose  tips.  There 
is  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  in  Eome  a 
seated  figure  of  the  Delphic  Sibyl  by  Michael  Angelo 
with  a  fore-shortened  right  arm  and  a  limp  half- 
opened  hand  resting  upon  the  knee  that  speaks  char- 
acter quite  as  forcefully  as  the  solemn  face.  The 
hand  has  power,  though  it  is  not  clenched;  and  it 
has  beauty,  though  it  is  not  what  would  be  called 
"  select."  There  is  about  it  a  something  of  the  mys- 
tery that  wraps  the  whole  figure.  It  belongs  to  the 
figure,  and  has  in  itself  a  Sibylline  quality,  an 
austerity,  a  wonderful  dignity.  Compare  it  for  a 
moment  with  the  hand  of  the  Samian  Sibyl  by  Guer- 
cino  in  the  Uffizi,  and  you  will  note  a  great  differ- 
ence. The  Guercino  picture  shows  simply  the  non- 
descript hand  of  a  pretty  model,  and  would  fit  as 
well  the  figure  of  a  Juno  or  a  Beatrice  Cenci  as  a 
Sibyl.    It  is  weak  and  lacks  character. 

Consider  the  hands  in  the  "  Mona  Lisa  "  by  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci,  and  what  wonderful  truth  and  beauty 
they  reveal !  They,  on  the  contrary,  are  very  "  se- 
lect," quite  ideal  in  proportions,  lovely  in  their  sym- 
metry and  softness.  And  how  perfectly  they  belong 
to  the  wrist,  the  arm,  the  whole  figure !  That  smil- 
ing face  and  the  riddle  that  lies  back  of  the  dark 


74  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

eyes  are  supplemented  and  complemented  by  those 
beautifully  drawn  liand.s.  They  are  in  themselves 
something  of  an  enigma.  Compare  them  again  with 
the  so-called  "  aristocratic ' '  hands  of  some  noble 
lady  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  (or  even  by  so  excellent 
a  painter  as  Van  Dyck),  and  you  cannot  but  feel  the 
difference.  The  Kneller  (or  Van  Dyck)  hands  may 
be  adjusted  to  almost  any  lady,  and  are  only  a  de- 
gree removed  from  those  of  Cabanel,  with  their 
manicured  finger-nails,  and  their  suspicion  of  scented 
soap. 

The  drawing  of  the  hand  is  considered  the  very 
hardest  problem  the  draftsman  has  to  solve,  so  you 
will  see  that  some  value  attaches  to  its  portrayal. 
If  truthfully  rendered,  it  may  be  not  only  a  revela- 
tion in  itself,  but  it  may  reveal  the  person  back  of 
it.  And  for  the  illustration  of  this  I  refer  you  to 
the  characteristic  hands  in  Van  der  Heist's  "  Ban- 
(juet  of  the  Civic  Guard"  in  the  Ryks  Museum,  Am- 
sterdam, It  has  been  said  that  if  every  one  of  them 
were  cut  off  and  thrown  into  a  basket  there  would 
be  no  trouble  in  putting  them  on  their  respective 
owners  again,  so  absolutely  do  they  belong  to  the 
figures. 

Our  modem  pictures  do  not  show  such  careful 
realization  of  the  model.  Indeed,  the  hands  are  now 
often  hidden  or  merely  brushed  in,  "  blocked  in." 
And  that,  too,  with  a  designed  slnr,  as  thougli  to 
emphasize  their  want  of  importance.     Mr.  Sargent 


FIGURE  PAINTING  75 

can,  if  he  will,  paint  them  superbly;  but  he  and 
many  of  his  contemporaries  often  dismiss  them  sum- 
marily. It  was  just  so  in  the  days  of  the  old  mas- 
ters. The  Dutch  museums  will  bear  witness  that 
Eembrandt  delighted  in  painting  hands,  and  did 
them  beautifully,  while  the  same  museums  intimate 
that  Frans  Hals  was  often  careless  and  impatient 
with  both  hands  and  feet. 

The  foot  is  something  usually  not  noticed  by 
visitors  in  the  picture  gallery.  The  average  person 
never  gives  it  a  thought.  The  painter  on  the  con- 
trary thinks  much  of  it,  and  sometimes  wonders 
how  he  can  hide  it  or  get  rid  of  painting  it  alto- 
o;ether.  The  tradition  still  runs  that  the  Venetian 
Bassani  put  sheep  and  cooking  utensils  in  the  fore- 
ground of  their  biblical  pictures  to  shut  out  the 
feet  of  their  men  and  women.  The  reason  for  this 
seems  to  be  that  it  is  not  easy  to  make  the  pictorial 
man  stand  on  his  feet  and  stand  firmly.  The  whole 
poise  of  the  body,  its  weight,  bulk,  and  carriage, 
depend  upon  how  the  feet  are  placed  upon  the  earth. 
They  seem  to  impart  the  sense  of  life,  the  power  of 
action,  the  ability  to  move  and  bend.  This  was  one 
of  the  last  things  learned  by  the  old  masters.  Giotto 
and  Duccio  and  Gentile  da  Fabriano  often  drew 
people  that  tilted  upon  their  heels  like  wooden  mani- 
kins; and  the  Early  Eenaissance  men  were  given  to 
types  smitten  with  stiffness  in  all  their  joints. 
Eaphael,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  and  the  Venetians  (Plate 


70  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

22)  comprehended  matters  better,  but  they  were  not 
always  perfect.  Even  to  this  day  the  painter  worries 
about  the  plantin":  of  the  foot.  Whistler  was  con- 
cerned about  it,  and  never  wearied  in  asking  whetlier 
his  figures  stood  firmly  or  not.  Well  he  might,  for 
the  character  of  the  figure  may  often  be  determined 
by  that  spring  of  action. 

Not  that  there  is  any  one  specific  character  whicli, 
if  given,  will  answer  for  each  and  every  foot.  On 
the  contrary,  tliat  member  is  almost  as  individual 
as  the  hand  and  must  complement  the  figure  in  a 
similar  manner.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  a  city 
girl  should  have  the  same  kind  of  feet  as  a 
bare-footed  peasant  girl  of  France.  Their  occupa- 
tions give  to  each  a  special  fitness  for  a  special 
purpose.  Therefore,  when  you  see  a  picture  by  Bou- 
guereau  called  "The  Little  (Jleaner,"  it  should 
not  take  you  long  to  conclude  that  the  feet  and 
hands  and  face  are  too  soft  and  pretty  and  clean  for 
the  fields;  and  that,  in  spite  of  the  costume  and 
the  property  wheat  held  in  the  hand  so  gracefully, 
Bouguereau  is  merely  giving  a  variation  of  the 
same  studio  model  that  poses  for  "Spring"  or 
"  Psyche." 

What  you  miss  in  the  feet.jind  for  that  matter,  in 
the  whole  figure,  is  chftracter.  And  this  is  precisely 
wliat  you  gain  in  Millet's  "  Cleaners."  The  feet  of 
the  bending  women  are  coarse  and  heavy;  but  is  not 
that   the   way   labor — contact   with    the   earth — has 


FIGURE  PAINTING  77 

fashioned  them  ?  The  shoes  make  the  feet  look  un- 
usually large,  but  does  that  not  help  out  the  firm 
manner  in  which  the  fimiros  stand  or  move?  Have 
you  any  doubt  about  the  feet  belonging  to  the  fig- 
ures, or  is  there  any  question  that  these  are  real 
peasants  pictured  as  they  actually  live  and  have  their 
being?  The  "Man  with  a  Hoe"  (Plate  21)  may 
be  a  falsehood  politically  and  socially — or  at  least 
the  thoughts  put  into  his  mouth  by  Millet  commen- 
tators may  be  all  wrong — but  physically  he  is  a  fact. 
He  stands  on  his  feet,  he  bends,  he  leans,  he  rests 
from  labor.  It  is  this  truth  of  characterization  that 
Millet  has  given  his  peasants  that  makes  them  con- 
vincing— makes-  them  great  in  art. 

There  is  just  as  much  truth,  though  of  a  different 
kind,  in  the  jaunty  pose  of  a  soubrette  by  Watteau, 
or  the  upward  spring  of  a  ballet  dancer  by  Degas,  or 
the  shuffle  of  a  Dutch  boor  by  Ostade,  or  the  swing 
forward  of  the  Captain  and  his  Lieutenant  in  Eem- 
brandt's  "  Night  Watch."  In  the  drawings  by  these 
masters,  hand  and  foot,  arm  and  leg,  head  and  body, 
are  all  of  a  piece;  each  fitted  to  each,  and  each  in- 
tensifying and  making  virile  the  character  portrayed. 
Look  again  at  Millet's  "  Gleaners."  What  arms  and 
backs  and  heads  they  have!  How  they  bend  and 
gather  and  bend  again!  The  feeling  of  life  and 
motion  is  everywhere  present.  You  cannot  choose 
but  believe  in  such  wonderful  types. 

The  same   kind   of   humanity,  that  is,  peasants, 


78  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

stone  breakers,  workmen  of  the  town,  were  painted 
many  times  by  Courbet,  Legros,  Daumier.  These 
painters  knew  the  gait,  the  stoop,  the  lift  of  labor; 
and  they  portrayed  it  with  telling  effect.  And  what 
splendid  life  was  imparted  by  Rembrandt,  Frans 
Hals,  and  Velasquez !  When  they  drew  an  arm  or  a 
back  or  a  neck  or  a  waist,  it  was  not  with  any  classic 
line  or  cut-and-dried  proportions.  They  did  not 
bother  with  petty  realisms,  nor  yet  again  with  aca- 
demic traditions.  They  painted  wluit  they  saw  be- 
fore them  and  endeavored  to  give  the  clwracter  of  the 
whole  figure.  How  well  they  succeeded  you  may  see 
by  the  pictures  in  the  galleries  at  Amsterdam,  Haar- 
lem, and  Madrid,  which  are  to-day  the  wonder  of  the 
art  student. 

It  is  precisely  due  to  the  truth  of  character  given 
them  by  their  painters  that  such  rough  uncouth 
people  as  Hals  depicted  became  beautiful  in  art. 
If  it  were  not  so  who  would  care  for  his  jolly  men 
or  for  the  brawling  peasants  of  Brouwer  or  the 
brutal  soldiers  of  Goya?  They  were  not  graceful 
or  beautiful  types  in  the  life.  They  became  beauti- 
ful in  art  because  of  the  superior  insiglit  of  the 
artist,  and  his  revelation  of  their  fitness-to  a  designed 
end.  The  character  of  them  is  given  so  impres- 
sively that  they  become  admirable  even  though  re- 
pulsive. The  beauty  of  the  ugly  is  not  a  paradox 
but  a  fact  (I'late  2:i}. 

On  the  contrary,  the  beauty  of  the  comely  is  often 


FIGURE   PAINTING  79 

open  to  question.  In  the  hands  of  painters  like  Carlo 
Dolci,  Sassoferrato,  Eaphael  Mengs,  or  Cabanel  types 
of  elegance  and  refinement  became  affected,  senti- 
mentfiij-^i'celsss.  Eegularity  of  feature  and  per- 
fect symmetry  of  form  could  not  save  them  from  a 
feeling  of  pretence  and  insincerity.  The  figures 
failed  to  convince  any  one  of  their  reality,  because 
they  lacked  a  fitness  for  a  purpose,  and  were  wanting 
in  positive  character.  The  suspicious  individual  in 
art,  as  in  life,  is  usually  the  one  of  smooth  appear- 
ance and  indefinite  description. 

From  this,  hoM'ever,  it  is  not  to  be  inferred  that 
art  consists  solely  in  peasants  by  Millet  or  fish-wives 
by  Hals  or  dwarfs  and  hoop-skirted  Infantas  by 
Velasquez  (Plate  25).  True  enough,  the  picturesque 
is  often  somewhat  removed  from  the  regular  and  the 
symmetrical.  It  has  been  said  more  than  once  that 
a  straw-thatched  cottage  makes  up  a  better  picture 
than  the  most  perfect  Greek  temple.  In  the  same 
sense  a  blue-frocked  peasant  from  Barbizon  might 
be  better  material  for  the  painter  than  a  dandy  from 
a  Paris  club.  But  lords  and  ladies  and  fine  clothes 
have  appeared  in  art  many  times  and  with  superb 
effect.  Ghirlandajo,  Mantegna,  the  Bellini,  Car- 
paccio,  all  painted  them;  and  with  such  integrity 
of  character  as  has  not  been  seen  since  their  day. 
After  them  came  the  fine,  dignified  types  of  Palma 
Vecchio,  the  regal  creations  of  Tintoretto,  and  the 
splendidly  costumed  figures  of  Paolo  Veronese. 


80  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

There  is  no  lack  of  integrity  or  drawing  with  such 
men.  Paolo's  noblemen  stand  or  move  or  turn  as 
truthfully  and  easily  as  ]\Iillct's  peasants,  l)ut  quite 
differently.  A  duchess  by  Paris  Bordone  sits  as  real- 
istically as  a  housewife  by  Teniers,  but  the  attitude 
is  not  the  same.  The  duchess  rests  like  a  duchess, 
and  the  nobleman  stands  like  a  nol)leman.  To  each 
is  given  the  attributes  that  are  significant  of  rank 
and  individuality.  There  may  be  as  much,  if  not 
more,  character  in  the  figures  of  the  great  as  in  those 
of  the  humble.  Titian's  "Charles  V"  rides  like 
a  king,  and  the  little  "  Don  Balthasar  "  of  Velas- 
quez like  the  child  that  would  be  king.  Both  of 
them  are  as  characteristic  and  as  typical  of  their 
kind  as  a  Dutch  boor  by  Steen  or  a  chasseur  by 
]\reissonicr. 

In  a  general  way  the  choice  of  clothes  and  figures 
and  faces  are  matters  of  liking,  matters  of  tempera- 
ment with  painters.  The  master  can  create  the  mas- 
terpiece out  of  l)eggar  or  king,  as  he  chooses.  It 
made  small  differonee  to  Velasquez  whether  he  were 
painting  Philip  or  ihe  court  buffoon;  and  Rembrandt 
could  make  a  picture  from  nii  Amsterdam  Jew  in 
rags  as  readily  as  from  a  bnrgomasfor  in  velvet. 
Thry  were  l)oth  intent  upon  giving  ^ht^+mth  of  lifi; 
before  them.  That,  indeed,  absorbed  them.  But 
in  modern  times  there  are  not  so  many  supreme 
masters,  nor  have  they  such  singleness  of  aim  as  the 
masters  of  the  past.    And,  besides,  the  weaker  breth- 


XXIII.— TORBIDO,  Old  Woman.     Venice  Academy. 


FIGURE   PAINTING  81 

ren  of  the  brush  to-day  are  rather  impressed  with  the 
idea  that  fine  art  means  fine  faces  and  fine  clothes. 
They  do  not  like  the  laborer,  the  peasant,  the  com- 
mon people  as  models.  The  Bouguereaus  and  Le- 
febvres  care  little  for  naturalistic  drawing  and  less 
for  characteristic  types.    They  admire  what  is  called 

"Jhe.id£al'^'' 

Now  the  ideal  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.  It 
is  a  conventional  type  which  has  been  handed  down 
by  tradition;  and  it  consists  of  a  selection  and  a 
combination  of  the  fine  qualities  of  the  many  in  the 
one.  By  a  process  of  elimination,  taking  only  the 
most  perfect  parts,  a  figure  is  constructed  which 
is  supposed  to  approximate  in  proportions  the  Greek 
ideal.  In  appearance  it  usually  has  a  predetermined 
height  and  weight  and  a  preternatural  elegance  of 
bearing,  both  of  which  are  quite  impressive  at  first; 
but  after  a  time  we  begin  to  see  that  they  are  artifi- 
cial— that  is,  machine-made — and  that  the  whole  is 
merely  an  em,pt;[_  pretence.  Instinctively  we  feel 
that  such  a  type  is 

I  "  Faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly  null."      T 

It  is  not  true  to  human  experience ;  its  life  is  simu- 
lated life,  and  its  movement  is  arrested  movement. 
Like  those  exotics  that  grow  in  houses,  its  bloom 
is  hectic  and  its  odor  calls  up  memories  of  a  per- 
fumery shop. 


82  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

You  cannot  clioosc  but  sec  this  ideal  li;iure  in  every 
gallery  you  enter.  After  Raphael  and  with  the 
painters  of  the  Decadence  in  Italy  it  was  freely 
adopted.  The  Italianized  Flemings  and  Dutchmen 
used  it ;  Murillo  consistently  and  persistently  em- 
ployed it  to  the  point -of  -vrcakness  (Plate  24) ;  the 
academic  element  in  French  art  has  always  exploited 
it;  David,  Ingres,  Flandrin,  Cabanel,  Bouguereau, 
are  names  that  suggest  it.  Empty,  and  forceless, 
it  is  nevertheless  popular,  patronized,  and  regarded 
by  many  as  a  paragon.  And,  indeed,  considered  dec- 
oratively,  it  may  be  very  far  from  worthless;  but  as 
an  expression  of  life,  t,ruth,  and  character,  it  is  weak 
and  without  value.  Such  an  insipid  formula  could 
never  express  true  feeling  in  art. 

The  accompaniment  of  the  ideal  figure  is  usually 
the  ideal  face.  It  is  constructed  by  the  same  table 
of  elegant  proportions  as  the  figure,  reckoning  that 
the  nose  shall  i)e  of  such  a  length,  the  cheeks  and 
chin  of  such  an  oval,  the  brow  of  such  an  arch, 
the  forehead  of  such  a  height.  In  the  hands  of  the 
artist-mechanic  it  becomes  merely  pretty,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  keep  it  from  falling  into  pretlincss  in 
the  hands  of  any  painter.  You  often  sec  this  face 
employed  in  fashion  ])lates,  on  handkerchief  boxes, 
on  placques.  It  smiles  and  tries  to  look  engaging, 
but  it  takes  no  phrenologist  to  see  that  there  is  not 
a  brain  in  the  head  or  a  line  of  character  in  the 
countenance.    It  is  an  empty  formu^-a  again,  and  yet 


XXIV.— MURILLO,   Madonna  and   Child.     Pitti,   Florence. 


FIGURE  PAINTING  83 

when  painted  by  Lefebvre  or  Madrazo  or  Chartran,  it 
is  astonishing  how  readily  people  accept  it.  It  al- 
ways was  popular  with  the  unthinking  mob,  just  as 
the  pretty  face  in  life  attracts  more  attention  than 
the  strong  one;  yet  there  never  was  any  question 
about  which  possessed  the  real  beauty.  Strength  of 
character  will  carry  farther  than  any  grace  of  regu- 
larity. 

And  just  here,  while  I  am  Insisting  that  figures 
and  faces  shall  show  character,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  say  that  not  all  figures,  not  all  pictures,  are 
to  be  judged  by  this  standard.  The  kind  of  drawing 
which  gives  the  realistic  appearance  is  sometimes 
called  naturalistic  drawing;  but  there  is  also  classic 
or  academic  drawing  that  may  be  extremely  graceful 
and  fill  space  decoratively  with  no  great  attempt  at 
strength  of  characterization.  Baudry's  ceiling  pieces 
in  the  Opera  House  at  Paris  are  of  this  stamp.  The 
figures  are  half  Greek,  half  Italian,  but  exceedingly 
well-drawn  and  well-placed.  So,  too,  the  gods  and 
goddesses  by  Boucher  and  Fragonard  are  not  to  be 
tried  by  the  realistic  law\  They  are  figures  found  in 
no  man's  land,  and  have  faces  beaming  with  mirth, 
or,  if  you  please,  a  trifle  silly  with  laughter;  but  for 
all  that  they  form  charming  decorations  for  panel 
and  ceiling.  Wattcau,  Pater,  and  Lancret  you  may 
think  frivolous  again,  but  consider  that  there  may 
be  character  even  in  frivolity;  and  Alfred  Stevens 
may  strike  you  as  a  man-milliner  in  paint,  and  yet  no 


84  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

modern  over  painted  silks  and  satins  witli  such  a  fine 
swing  of  the  brush  and  such  charming  color.  We  are 
not  to  forget  the  merely  decorative.  Tt  is  possible 
for  painting  to  look  quite  beaiitiinl  I lioiii^h. meaning 
little..«e-«««a»to,  and  counting  for  little  as  char- 
acterization. 


CHAPTER    VII 
PORTRAIT   PAINTING 

The  portraits  by  the  old  masters,  as  those  by  more 
modern  painters,  may  and  often  do  include  the  half- 
length  or  whole-length  of  the  figure;  but,  of  course, 
their  chief  interest  as  portraiture  lies  in  the,  heads. 
The  hands,  the  arms,  the  shoulders,  the  whole  figure, 
are  sometimes  generalized,  or  merely  suggested  in- 
stead of  completed,  or  made  up  from  memory,  or 
taken  from  different  models;  but  the  face  is,  or 
should  be,  in  modern  work  at  least,  peculiar  to  some 
one  person.  This  we  may  suppose  forms  the  history 
of  an  individual  which,  if  associated  with  other  in- 
dividuals in  a  group,  might  make  an  historical  pic- 
ture such  as  Velasquez's  "  Surrender  of  Breda,"  or 
David's  "  Coronation  of  Josephine  " ;  but  standing 
alone  it  becomes  the  portrait — a  branch  of  art  which 
must  be  spoken  of  separately. 

There  is  a  Greek  myth  going  about  the  world 
which  gives  the  supposed  origin  of  portraiture,  and 
also  incidentally  of  sculpture.  Butades,  a  Greek  pot- 
ter, had  a  daughter  who  had  a  lover.  One  night, 
as  they  all  sat  by  the  firelight,  the  daughter  outlined 
with  charcoal  on  the  wall  the  silhouette  of  her  lover, 

85 


86  STUDIES    IN    PICTURES 

and  afterward  induced  her  father  to  fill  it  m  witli 
wet  clay  and  model  the  face.  From  that,  say  the 
Greeks,  portraiture  and  sculpture  were  developed. 
Unfortunately  for  the  pretty  story  the  Egyptians 
and  Chaldeans  made  stone  portraits  before  Greek 
walls  were  built  or  Greek  girls  had  lovers.  A  cer- 
tain style  of  portraiture  began  with  the  first  man 
who  carved  with  a  flint  a  sandstone  block  into  a 
rude-shaped  idol.  It  was  not  our  style  of  portraiture, 
by  any  means.  Our  teaching  has  led  us  to  asso- 
ciate a  portrait  with  an  exact  facial  likeness,  but 
that  was  not  the  teaching  of  the  ancients.  There  are 
different  kinds  of  portraits  scattered  through  gal- 
leries and  museums,  and  we  may  as  well  begin  by 
examining  them. 

The  earliest  portraits  made  in  Egypt  were  of  a 
realistic  nature — that  is,  the  Egyptians  cut  in  gran- 
ite and  painted  upon  walls,  as  accurately  as  they 
could,  the  likenesses  of  their  people,  their  kings,  and 
their  gods.  Most  of  them  were  intended  for  the  tomb 
and  the  temple;  and  during  the  first  four  dynasties 
there  was  much  of  this  work.  Later  on  in  Egyptian 
history,  however,  the  realistic  art  was  succeeded  by 
a  conventional  art  which  makes  up  the  bulk  of  what 
remains  to  us.  This  conventional  art  made  portraits, 
too;  but  they  were  ideal,  not  realistic.  I  do  not  now 
mean  "  ideal  "  in  any  modern  sense.  The  Egyptian 
ideal  was  an  aiistraction — a  gathering  iogethcr  of 
race  attributes,  heroic  attributes,  kingly  attributes. 


XXV.— VELASQUEZ,    Infanta  Maria  Theresa.     Vienna  Gallery. 


PORTRAIT  PAINTING  87 

When  a  Eameses  commanded  a  portrait  of  himself 
to  be  made,  his  exact  features  and  expression  were 
not  given,  except  in  a  vague  way.  It  was  an  Egyp- 
tian face  with  a  calm  smile,  great  dignity  and  repose, 
and  a  serenity,  that  not  even  the  gods  could  ruffle. 
All  the  kingly  qualities  were  there;  it  had  majesty, 
wisdom,  power,  austerity;  and  yet  it  was  only  a 
type,  and  not  the  likeness  of  the  king  himself.  All 
that  made  it  his,  as  distinguished  from  any  other 
Pharaoh,  was  his  name  cut  on  the  base  or  pilaster. 
When  he  died  his  successor  sometimes  had  the  dead 
king's  name  chiselled  from  the  statue  and  his  own 
name  put  in  its  place. 

This  ideal  portraiture  was  not  confined  to  Egypt. 
Assyrian  art  is  full  of  it.  There  has  yet  to  be  dis- 
covered in  all  the  countless  bas-reliefs  of  Assyria 
a  distinctly  individual  portrait.  There  are  but  two 
faces,  one  with  a  beard,  and  one  without  a  beard. 
The  king  is  told  from  his  followers  only  by  size,  po- 
sition, the  richness  of  his  robe,  and  the  inscriptions 
that  accompany.  We  have  no  exact  likeness  of 
Assur-banipal  or  Shalmanezer,  or  any  other  Assy- 
rian potentate. 

The  great  bulk  of  Greek  portrait  sculpture  before 
Phidias  repeated  the  same  thing.  An  abstraction 
was  given — that  is,  the  attributes  and  features  typi- 
cal, not  of  any  one  Greek,  but  of  the  Greek  race. 
Pliny  tells  us  that  athletes  when  once  victorious  in 
the  games  were  awarded  an  ideal  statue  in  the  Olym- 


88  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

pic  grove;  and  when  thrice  victorious  a  portrait 
statue.  But  what  did  a  Greek  with  his  race  liking 
for  ideals  mean  by  a  portrait?  We  cannot  conclude 
that  it  meant  the  same  thing  to  him  that  it  does  to 
us.  It  is  true  that  after  the  time  of  Alexander  Greek 
art  became  more  realistic  than  ever  before,  but  it 
was  hardly  our  realism.  The  Hellenic  artist  was 
more  or  less  idealistic  from  beginning  to  end.  When 
he  attempted  the  portrait  he  always  gave  the  ideal 
figure,  and  he  made  the  face  ideal,  too,  with  some  ex- 
ceptions. The  heads  of  Alexander,  for  example,  are 
merely  Greek  types,  with  the  exception  of  a  fulness 
over  the  eyes  and  a  brushing  up  of  the  hair  from  the 
forehead — peculiarities  which  were  no  doubt  char- 
acteristic of  the  man.  The  sculptors  doubtless  made 
the  heads  from  memory,  taking  the  Greek  ideal  as  a 
foundation,  and  giving  a  few  striking  features  to  dis- 
tinguish them  as  representations  of  Alexander.  The 
so-called  iconic  portraits  of  Homer  and  Anacreon 
belong  in  the  same  category.  They  were  portraits 
not  so  much  of  individual  Greeks  as  of  kleal  poets 
with  such  qualities  of  type  as  poets  were  likely  to 
possess.  All  the  portraits  of  the  philosophers,  gen- 
erals, and  orators  of  Greece,  \\nth  the  exception  of  the 
late  ones,  were  largely  of  this  same  kind,  with  here 
and  there  a  feature  that  possibly  belonged  \o  the 
original.  They  were  neither  realistic  nor  purely 
ideal,  but  half-way  between,  or  semi-ideal. 

This    second    kind    of   portraiture    was    not    char- 


XXVI.— TITIAN,  Young  Englishman.     Pitti,   Florence. 


PORTRAIT   PAINTING  89 

acteristic  of  Greece  alone,  but  of  Eome;  and  yet, 
side  by  side  with  it  in  late  Greco-Roman  times,  there 
began  to  show  a  realistic  art  that  left  generaliza- 
tions, so  far  as  the  face  was  concerned,  and  tried 
to  reproduce  the  exact  features.  If  you  recall  the 
face  of  Julius  Caesar,  with  its  sharp  nose  and  chin, 
thin  lips,  hollow  cheeks,  and  sunken  eyes,  you  will 
understand  what  I  mean  by  the  realistic  portrait. 
It  is  not  a  generic  type  or  a  Roman  ideal,  but  the 
literal  rendering  of  peculiar  features.  It  is  the  face 
of  an  individual. 

All  through  the  Rome  of  the  Cssars  the  realistic 
portrait  existed,  but  it  was  not  unalloyed  by  the  ideal, 
as  you  may  see  by  a  glance  at  the  busts  of  Augustus, 
Nero,  and  Tiberius.  Realistic  portraiture  never  held 
complete  sway  until  long  after  the  Roman,  the 
Mediaeval,  and  the  Gothic  ages  had  passed  away  and 
the  Early  Renaissance  began.  Then  Donatello  and 
his  school  in  sculpture,  Botticelli,  Mantegna,  Dlirer, 
and  Van  Eyck  in  painting,  began  the  portrayal  of 
men  and  women  precisely  as  they  saw  them ;  and  the 
result  was  a  strong,  realistic  portraiture  which  has 
remained  with  us  ever  since. 

Now  all  the  portraits  of  the  last  four  hundred  years 
are  real  enough  in  the  sense  of  a  likeness  to  an  in- 
dividual; but  they  are  far  from  being  all  alike  in 
point  of  view  or  manner  of  treatment.  They  all  ren- 
der peculiarities  of  feature,  coloring,  or  dress;  but 
a  portrait  should  reveal  something  more  than  the 


90  STrOIES   IN    PICTURES 

texture  of  a  man's  skin,  the  coloring  of  his  hair  and 
eyes,  or  the  style  of  his  clothing.  It  is  true  that  man 
is  a  good  animal  and  represents  physical  life,  but 
it  is  also  true  that  he  is  a  thinker  and  represents  in- 
tellectual life.  He  shows  intelligence  not  only  in 
words  and  acts,  but  in  looks;  and  it  is  necessary  that 
the  painter  should  reveal  that  intelligence  in  his  por- 
trait. But  there  are  many  painters  of  many  kinds, 
and  the  result  is  there  are  many  portraits  showing 
many  different  views  of  humanity. 

To  start  with  there  is  the  work  of  the  man  who 
thinks  the  aim  of  portrait  painting  is  the  exact  imi- 
tation of  the  physical  man,  and  that  the  best  way  to 
get  a  likeness  of  him  is  to  portray  wrinkles,  eyelashes, 
and  three-days-old  beard.  This  is  the  small  and 
narrow  view  of  the  man,  the  indulgence  in  petty 
truths  at  the  expense  of  great  ones.  It  sometimes 
calls  for  applause  from  the  multitude,  because  people 
always  wonder  at  minute  work.  But  such  workman- 
ship is  merely  a  piece  of  mechanical  dexterity  not 
unlike  the  engraving  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  on  a  ten- 
cent  piece.  Neither  exploit  is  art,  nor  anything 
other  than  a  trick  of  the  hand.  A  man's  portrait 
is  no  more  valuable  for  its  wrinkles  than  the  sun 
for  its  spots.  Both  can  be  overlooked  by  the  person 
who  is  seeking  greater  truths.  Denner  and  a  host 
of  other  painters  followed  this  minute  style  of  work ; 
but  their  portraits  are  only  gallery  curiosities  to-day, 
and   were  never  anything  else  at  any   time.     Any 


PORTRAIT  PAINTING  91 

painter  who  tries  to  rival  the  detail  of  the  photo- 
graph may  be  safely  set  down  as  mistaken  as  to  the 
province  of  art.  Art  is-  not  an  imitation  but  an 
interpretation  of  nature — "  nature  seen  through  the 
prism  of  an  emotion/'  as  Alfred  Stevens  has  put  it, 
rather  than  nature  seen  through  a  microscope.  The 
microscopic  has  never  taken  high  rank  as  art. 

Far  above  the  Denners  comes  a  second  kind  of 
portrait  painter  who  still  paints  more  of  the  physical 
than  the  mental  in  his  sitter,  but  he  does  so  in  a 
broad,  elevated  and  dignified  manner.  He  does  not 
fathom  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  mind,  and  indeed 
it  is  not  his  business  to  do  so.  He  does  not  read  the 
hidden  character  of  the  man,  any  more  than  the 
so-called  mind-readers.  But  he  sees  his  sitter  as  a 
substantial  piece  of  physical  life,  breathing,  living, 
exulting  in  animal  spirits,  a  creature  surrounded 
by  light  and  color  and  air  and  belonging  to  all  of 
them.  Moreover  he  sees  him  as  a  whole,  a  complete 
person  unspotted  by  emphasized  wrinkles  and  petty 
deformities.  The  salient  points  of  physical  existence, 
such  as  bulk.  body,  and  the  unity  of  the  color  masses, 
he  draws  and  paints  in  a  broad,  free  way. 

This  class  of  portrait  painters  includes  a  great 
many  living  men  and  a  large  number  of  the  old  mas- 
ters. Frans  Hals  is  an  excellent  example  of  it,  and 
for  painting  the  purely  human  he  never  had  a  supe- 
rior. Almost  all  the  portraits  by  Terburg,  Moroni, 
Antonello  da  Messina,  and  even  Holbein  and  Velas- 


92  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

quez  belong  in  this  category;  though  with  each  one 
of  these  men  we  find  examples  that  go  beyond  the 
merely  physical  and  belong  with  the  highest  and  the 
best  portraiture. 

This  last  class  of  portraiture  is,  as  you  have  doubt- 
less anticipated,  that  whicli  not  only  gives  the  physi- 
cal but  also  tlie  mental  and  periiaps  the  moral  char- 
acter. And  just  here  is  a  poiul  ovit  wliieh  the 
painter  and  the  public  agree  to  disagree.  The  painter 
assures  us  (in  words  not  always  gentle)  that  he  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  mental  and  moral  nature 
of  the  man.  He  is  to  paint  only  his  pictorial  ap- 
pearance, only  what  he  sees  before  him.  As  for  this 
subtle  analysis  of  a  man's  character,  this  shrewd  di.s- 
cernment  of  a  nobleman,  a  poet,  a  statesman,  or  a 
murderer,  the  painter  thinks  it  is  more  in  the  specta- 
tor's imagination  than  in  the  picture. 

Well,  the  painter  is  right;  but  the  public  is  not 
entirely  wrong.  The  difference  may  be  largely  one  of 
words — a  great  many  differences  are.  It  is  true  that 
the  painter  has  nothing  to  do  witli  the  man's  life 
or  history,  his  achievement  or  his  lack  of  achieve- 
ment aside  from  what  shows  in  the  physical  make-up ; 
but  can  it  be  doubted  that  what  a  man  has  done  or 
is  doing,  what  he  thinks,  what  he  endures,  what  he 
enjoys,  what  he  suffers,  will  somehow  make  its  im- 
press upon  his  face  and  be  an  index  to  his  character 
for  those  who  are  keen-sighted  enough  to  see  it  ?  We 
have  heard  of  reading  character  by  hands  or  clothing 


XXVII.— REMBRANDT,   Elizabeth   Bas.     Rijks  Museum,   Amsterdam. 


PORTRAIT   PAINTING  93 

or  movements,  but  after  all  can  it  not  be  read  best 
in  the  human  face? 

The  face  is  the  mirror  of  the  thoughts,  the  beliefs, 
the  passions,  the  emotions.  Certainly  the  man  of 
books  will  after  years  of  study  wear  the  student's 
thoughtful  expression,  the  pastor  of  the  flock  will 
finally  show  the  ministerial  air;  the  soldier  the 
martial  bearing;  the  servant,  subserviency;  and  the 
beggar  mock  humility.  We  may  not  always  see 
these  features  obtruding  upon  us  in  actual  life.  If 
we  try  to  guess  at  people's  occupations  in  a  crowd 
we  are  often  puzzled.  But  that  may  be  because  we 
are  not  good  readers  of  the  human  face.  There 
is  precisely  where  the  portrait-painter  comes  in 
with  his  training  and  experience.  He  has  become 
an  expert  in  just  that  very  thing.  It  would  be 
strange,  indeed,  if  after  studying  faces  all  his  life 
he  should  not  see  more  in  them  than  we  who  merely 
glance  at  them  casually  to  recognize  an  acquaint- 
ance, and  sometimes  have  difficulty  even  in  doing 
that. 

Let  us  not  misunderstand  about  this.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  painter  sees  more  scholarship,  more 
poetry,  more  humility,  or  more  brutality  in  the  faces ; 
but  merely  that  he  sees  the  physical  conformation 
more  completely  than  we  do.  This  for  the  same 
reason  that  a  landscape-painter  sees  more  in  a  blue 
sky,  a  shaft  of  light,  or  a  single  tree  than  one  who 
is  not  a  landscape-painter.     There  is  usually  at  the 


94  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

dining-room  entrance  of  each  one  of  the  large  New 
York  hotels  an  attendant  who  takes  the  hats  of  peo- 
ple entering  the  room.  Without  checks  or  numbers 
he  seldom  fails  to  return  every  man  his  own  hat. 
Now  he  does  not  do  so  by  saying  to  himself,  "  Tliat 
man  looks  like  a  judge,  this  one  like  a  merchant, 
and  this  one  like  a  physician  ";  but  by  noticing  some 
peculiarity  of  face  or  figure  characteristic  of  each 
man.  The  result  of  his  practice  is  that  he  has  a 
very  superior  knowledge  of  physiognomy. 

Just  so  with  the  portrait-painter.  When  a  man 
comes  into  his  studio  he  does  not  look  at  him  in 
solemn  study  and  mentally  conclude,  "  You  look 
as  though  you  might  be  a  professor;  I'll  give  you  a 
thoughtful  brow."  He  simply  studies  tlie  man's 
physique,  tries  to  imagine  him  as  he  would  look  in 
a  picture,  and  finally  puts  down  his  imagination  on 
canvas.  Of  course  he  emphasizes  the  marked  fea- 
tures just  as  a  caricaturist  exaggerates  them.  Some- 
times the  caricature  resembles  the  man  more  strongly 
than  a  photograph,  and  .sometimes  the  painter  gets 
"  that  thoughtful  look,"  or  "  that  nervous  quality  " 
more  pronounced  than  in  the  original.  He  sees 
abnormal  or  protrusive  features  in  the  sitter  (such 
features  as  thin  lips,  high  cheek  bones,  delicate  nos- 
trils, overhanging  brows,  all  become  a  little  abnor- 
mal in  people  who  have  done  things)  and  he  seizes 
upon  them,  painting  them  strongly  because  they  ap- 
peal to  him  strongly.    The  result  is  the  peculiar  look 


PORTRAIT   PAINTING  95 

that  betrays  the  character  of  the  man  appears  in  the 
painting.  And  that,  too,  perhaps  without  the  paint- 
er's thinking  about  it  consciously,  or  doing  anything 
other  than  portraying  strongly  what  he  saw  before 
him. 

That  is  about  all  there  is  to  the  character  por- 
trait. The  painter  is  right  in  his  contention.  He 
cannot  go  beyond  the  surface.  If  a  great  statesman 
looks  like  a  butcher,  it  is  his  business  to  paint  him  as 
he  looks.  Of  course  much  depends  upon  the  way  in 
which  he  sees  his  sitter,  whether  he  produces  a  good 
portrait  or  not.  According  to  Mr.  Henry  James, 
"  Art  is  a  point  of  view,  and  genius  a  way  of  look- 
ing at  things."  The  definition  has  been  well-worn, 
but  still  has  some  force.  Your  little  men  in  por- 
traiture see  little  things,  wrinkles  and  buttons  and 
cocked  hats;  they  paint  them  in  a  small  way,  and 
are  sometimes,  but  mistakenly,  referred  to  as  "  real- 
ists." Your  great  men  see  the  larger  and  more 
important  things,  physical  life  and  characteristic  fea- 
tures; they  paint  them  in  a  large  way  and  are  some- 
times, but  just  as  mistakenly,  referred  to  as  "  ideal- 
ists." The  difference  is  largely  one  of  degree — of 
view-point.  Denner  could  find  nothing  in  the  face  of 
a  sitter  but  freckles  and  wrinkles;  but  Titian  could 
see.-ar-physitrai' and"  intellectual  being  possessed  of  a 
personality  and  a  distinct  character. 

As  for  the  distorted  meaning  of  the  word  "  real- 
ism," by  which  people  usually  mean  the  painting 


96  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

of  peanuts  and  postage-stamps  to  be  picked  up,  a 
truth  is  no  truer  because  it  is  petty  and  easily  dis- 
cerned. A  man's  character,  be  it  true  or  false,  is 
just  as  true  and  real  as  his  nose  or  his  forehead,  and 
the  great  portrait-painters  like  Titian  and  Hom- 
brandt  were  Just  as  realistic  in  a  large  way  as  Denner, 
Dou,  Meissonier,  and  all  the  little  men  of  the  paint 
brush  were  in  a  small  way.  There  is  a  characteristic 
look  or  appearance  that  distinguishes  a  man  from 
his  fellows,  and  that  is  precisely  the  important  por- 
trait-truth that  the  painter  should  see  and  portray. 
He  is  not  to  put  character  in  a  man,  not  to  make 
him  look  noble  when  he  has  no  nobility  about  him; 
but  he  is  to  make  the  most  of  what  he  finds  by  seiz- 
ing upon  the  prominent  features.  This,  in  the  hands 
of  genius,  produces  the  highest  kind  of  portraiture, 
best  seen  perhaps  in  such  men  as  Titian,  Rembrandt, 
Velasquez,  Rubens — in  short  the  great  painters  of  all 
time. 

And  please  notice  that  the  great  painters  of  all 
time  did  not  despise  painting  the  portrait,  that  they 
really  took  pleasure  in  painting  it,  and  that  their 
great  masterpieces  are  portraits.  There  is  a  notion 
prevalent  in  uninlolligont  circles  that  portrait- 
painting  is  a  perfunctory  affair,  a  following  of  the 
model  requiring  no  great  imagination,  a  kind  of 
work  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with 
historical  or  ideal  creation.  Do  not  believe  any  such 
nonsense.    A  portrait  by  Titian  (Plate  2C^)  or  l?em- 


XXVIIL— PlERO    DELLA    FRANCESCA  (?),   Unknown   Lady.     Pitti,   Florence. 


PORTRAIT  PAINTING  97 

brandt  (Plate  37)  is  about  the  best  that  painting  has 
to  offer  us. 

Let  me  suggest  also  that  in  studying  the  great 
portraits  you  do  not  allow  yourself  to  be  bothered 
by  the  "  ugly  "  or  the  "  handsome."  You  may  think 
that  Mantegna's  men  and  Piero  della  Francesca's 
women  (Plate  28)  are  "ugly,"  because  they  are  not 
sweet-faced  like  the  saints  of  Perugino ;  but  consider 
what  superb  force  and  truth  they  have,  and  how  nobly 
they  represent  their  clime  and  time  and  race !  They 
are  wonderful  revelations  of  character — epitomes  of 
the  best  in  the  Italian  people.  There  is  very  little 
in  nature  that  is  "  ugly "  when  seen  in  its  proper 
environment. 

And  again,  do  not  allow  yourself  to  be  worried  by 
costumes  that  you  may  think  hideous  because  difEer- 
ent  from  our  ovm. — the  ruffs  of  Antonio  Moro,  the 
brocades  of  Mierevelt,  the  hoop-skirts  of  Velasquez. 
If  you  will  forget  their  form  and  look  at  them 
merely  as  color  in  a  decorative  pattern,  you  will 
see  how  very  beautifully  they  answer  their  purpose 
in  filling  space  and  pleasing  the  eye.  The  three  chil- 
dren's portraits  by  Velasquez  in  the  Vienna  Gal- 
lery, in  spite  of  the  balloon-quality  of  their  nether 
garments,  are  the  most  superb  pieces  of  painting 
in  all  the  world  (Plate  25).  The  portrait  does  not 
consist  in  the  pretty  face  and  the  tailor-made  suit, 
otherwise  the  fashion  plates  of  the  women's  journals 
would  have  a  monopoly  of  that  branch  of  art. 


98  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

Of  course  there  is  danger  in  too  great  a  display  of 
either  costume  or  color.  The  painter  may  make 
the  picture  of  these,  combined  with  sunlight  and 
pirin  nir;  but  in  doing  so  he  may  lose  the  portrait, 
^lany  a  modern  painter  is  open  to  that  very  criti- 
cism. He  overlooks  the  fact  that  in  portraiture  the 
subject  is  more  exacting  than  in  any  other  l)ranch 
of  painting.  The  iflpntity  pnc\  ppri-iprinlity  of  tlic 
sitter  must  be  preserved.  A  free  personal  inter- 
pretation, such  as  Delacroix  or  Millet  gave  with 
their  figure  pictures,  will  not  answer.  Some  feeling 
must  be  put  in  the  work,  some  sympathy  with  the 
model  must  I)e  apparent ;  but  too  great  a  license  may 
falsify  the  likeness  and  romance  the  character. 

Again,  there  is  or  should  be  a  limit  to  the  use  of 
gorgeous  accessories.  Too  many  splendid  furnishings 
may  rob  the  king  himself  of  importance.  There  is 
a  nice  balance  to  be  maintained  in  portraiture;  and 
because  they  maintained  the  balance  exactly  and 
perfectly  is  perhaps  one  reason  why  we  keep  hark- 
ing back  to  Titian  and  A^'elasquez  as  the  great  mas- 
ters. They  do  not  reproduce  the  sitter  with  photo- 
graphic exactness  and  nothing  more;  neither  do  they 
leave  him  struggling  in  a  fog-bank  of  color,  light, 
and  silken  splendor.  They  have  a  knowledge  of  lim- 
itations and  are  gifted  with  a  sense  of  proportion. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
GENRE     PAINTING 

We  have  not  yet  finished  with  tlie  human  figure  in 
art.  There  are  otlier  phases  of  it  than  the  portrait 
and  the  historical  scene — phases  that  you  will  not  see 
too  much  of  in  the  Italian  galleries,  but  M^hich  will 
be  greatly  in  evidence  in  the  Dutch,  English,  and 
French  collections,  especially  among  the  modern 
pictures.  I  mean  now  the  genre  painting — some- 
thing that  we  must  labor  over  in  illustration  if  we 
would  define. 

In  historical  painting  the  figure  is  of  primary  im- 
portance; and  the  landscape,  the  room,  the  street, 
the  court,  or  wherever  the  figure  may  be  placed,  is 
usually  a  subordinate  background,  a  mere  setting  or 
framework.  In  genre  painting  the  figure  is  usually 
reduced  in  size  so  that  it  sometimes  plays  no  more 
of  a  part  than  a  house  or  an  animal  or  a  spot  of 
color;  and  the  scene  is  painted  as  a  whole  without 
the  sacrifice  of  any  part.  That  distinction  may  prove 
suggestive,  but  it  is  not  by  any  means  definite  or 
final.  It  is  the  distinction  between  man  as  a  mere 
human  being  and  man  as  an  individual. 

99 


100  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

There  are  those  wlio  undcrsiand  by  genre  paint- 
ing the  painting  of  the  commonplace;  hut  that, 
again,  hardly  describes  it.  Meissonier  was  at  one 
time  considered  the  prince  of  genre  painters,  as 
Terburg  before  him ;  and  yet,  in  a  sense,  neither  of 
them  painted  commonplace  subjects.  In  fact  they 
were  rather  elegant  seventeenth-  and  eighteenth- 
century  cavaliers  and  Imrghers.  If  we  mean  by 
"commonplace"  the  ordinary  events  or  intimate 
scenes  of  every-day  life,  as  distinguished  from  scenes 
of  historic  or  national  importance,  we  may  be  nearer 
\  the  truth  and  yet  still  be  in  something  of  a  mental 
tangle. 

Perhaps  we  shall  understand  its  meaning  better  if 
we  try  to  define  its  scope  or  extent.  Cxenro  painting, 
then,  includes  pictures  of  interiors,  street  scenes, 
housesy^mtjh  figures;  it  deals  with  f^ia<,  stories,  do- 
mestic events,  incidents  of  high  or  low  life;  it  shows 
manners,  usages,  and  every-day  occupations,  and  is, 
in  measure,  an  illustration  of  the  sociai -M^e-of  the 
people.  It  does  not  include  the  portrait  or  the  land- 
scape or  the  animal  piece  as  such;  nor  does  it  prop- 
erly include  still-life  or  flower  painting,  though  these 
are  usually  priKlucod  by  genre  painters. 

Dealing,  as  it  does,  largely  with  contemporary 
events  and  familiar  life,  genre  painting  seems  to 
imply  something  done  from  the  model — something 
reajistic  in  appearance.  Such  an  inference  is  correct 
enough,  but  is  subject  to  some  exceptions.    As  a  rule 


GENRE  PAINTING  101 

its  producers  do  paint  what  they  see  before  them 
oftener  than  what  they  fancy  or  imagine.  Actual 
life  being  the  theme  models  are  easily  obtainable; 
and  the  painter,  working  directly  from  the  fact, 
tries  to  give  his  picture  the  look  of  reality. 

This  very  feature,  to  which  you  are  perhaps  readily 
drawn  in  the  gallery,  has  been  cast  in  the  face  of  the 
genre  painters  as  a  reproach.  The  historical  painters 
— the  grave  academicians  who  have  never  had  any 
compunctions  of  conscience  about  casting  the  first 
stone — have  been  kind  enough  to  say  that  the  genre 
painters  are  mere  imitators  of  set  forms,  that  they 
have  no  great  knowledge  or  imagination  and  do  no 
thinking,  that  they  work  entirely  from  the  fingers  and 
gain  effects  by  bright  color,  flashy  textures,  and  dex- 
terous manipulation  of  the  brush.  And  to  tell  the 
truth  there  is  something  in  that  assertion.  The 
genre  painters,  being  put  to  their  wits  for  answer, 
have  abused  the  historical  painters  for  concocting 
dreams  on  canvas;  for  picturing  people  they  have 
never  seen,  and  reciting  events  they  have  never 
known,  for  distorting  the  truth  of  natural  appear- 
ance, and  for  neglecting  the  truly  poetic  in  the 
humble  things  of  every-day  life.  And  to  tell  a  fur- 
ther truth  there  is  something  in  that  assertion.  It  is 
an  odd  chapter  in  art  history  that  does  not  contain 
a  quarrel  of  some  sort. 

But  genre  painting  is  not  wholly  an  imitation  of 
given   models,   nor   a   case   of   mere   technical   fire- 


102  STl  DIES   IN   PICTURES 

works.  The  little  incidents  of  life — family  groups 
in  interiors,  tavern  scenes,  street  processions,  court 
squares  with  huckster  stalls  and  passing  people — are 
as  much  history  as  Xenophon  and  the  Ten  Thousand 
or  Napoleon  at  Marengo,  though  they  may  not  ap- 
pear so  important  in  the  eyes  of  the  political  world. 
They  are  the  evcnt'i  of  sooial-Iife,  and  as  such  are 
entitled  to  consideration.  Time  was  when  history 
was  no  more  than  the  biographies  of  kings,  but  to- 
day we  are  beginning  to  think  it  means  the  sociologi- 
cal doings  of  all  the  people. 

Moreover,  these  domestic  subjects  offer  abundant 
opportunity  for  the  display  of  imagination  and  pic- 
torial poetry.  It  is  true  that  the  painters  usually  do 
not  strive  for  those  qualities.  There  is  no  great 
imagination  in  Pietcr  de  Hooch's  interiors  (Plate 
21))  or  Mcissonier's  readers  or  Alfred  Stevens'  fash- 
ionable women.  The  skill  of  the  artist  is  predomi- 
nant, and  an  artistic  feeling  for  light  or  color  is  about 
all  there  is  to  the  picture.  But  the  fisher-folk  of  Is- 
raels, the  workers  of  Bonvin,  or  the  children  of  Char- 
din  or  (!ainsborough  are  full  of  true  poetry,  and  are 
quite  as  important  contributions  to  art  and  life  as 
pictures  of  more  pretentious  size.  The  value  of  sen- 
timent is  not  appraised  i)y  the  extent  of  either  verse 
or  canvas.  A  single  couplet  by  Burns  or  a  single 
spader  or  shepherdess  by  Millet  is  worth  a  volume 
by  Tupper,  or  a  whole  wall  panel  by  Kaulbach  or 
Cornelius. 


Q 

< 


O 


X 
X 
X 


GENRE  PAINTING  103 

As  for  skill  the  genre  painting  requires  just  as 
much  as  any  other  painting,  and  is  subject  to  just 
as  severe  criticism  from  the  public.  The  mob  that 
surges  through  the  Louvre  on  Sundays  may  pass 
uncriticised  Couture's  "  Eomans  of  the  Decadence," 
because  it  knows  little  about  the  subject;  but  let 
a  genre  painting  of  a  concierge  sitting  in  a  doorway 
appear,  and  every  shopkeeper  and  cabman  in  the 
throng  will  be  able  to  tell  you  whether  it  is  true  or 
not.  The  genre  is  not  to  be  despised  because  it  is 
small  in  scale  or  incidental  in  subject.  And  again 
let  me  say  that  a  picture  should  not  be  measured  by 
size,  nor  the  remoteness  of  its  subject  from  our 
knowledge;  but  by  the  lifa-that-is  kt-it  and  the  life 
which  it  is  able  to  awaken  in  us. 

Of  course  this  painting  of  familiar  life  is  no  new 
thing  invented  in  modern  times  to  please  a  fashion- 
able world.  Indeed,  it  is  very  old.  The  ancient 
Egyptians  pictured  the  every-day  events  of  their  life, 
but  not  in  a  manner  distinct  from  their  more  formal 
historical  presentations.  In  Greece  there  was  an  art 
of  the  grotesque  that  approximated  modern  genre; 
and  in  later  times  the  small  things  in  Greek  and  in 
Roman  life  all  found  their  way  upon  wall  and  panel. 
After  Rome  there  was  little  of  it  for  a  thousand 
years;  and  then,  at  the  end  of  the  Renaissance,  it 
came  into  notice  again  with  the  pictures  of  the  Vene- 
tian Bassani  and  their  contemporaries.  At  the  north 
almost  all  the  art  of  the  little  Dutchmen  belongs  in 


104  STUDIES  IN   PICTURES 

this  department.  In  fact  the  Netherlanders  were 
the  first  who  gave  definite  rank  and  importance  to  the 
picture  of  humble  life  and  commonplace  story. 
Brouwor,  Teniers,  Terburg,  Steen,  Van  der  Meer  of 
Delft,  De  Hooch,  Van  Mieris,  all  painted  the  small 
panel  with  the  small  subject,  but  often  in  a  very 
large  way.  And  Yery  lione^^tly.  They  were  not  at  all 
ashamed  of  their  home  life. 

It  was  the  influence  of  the  Dutchmen  that  had 
something  to  do  with  making  "  the  picture  with  a 
story  "  in  English  art.  Hogarth,  Wilkie,  Morland 
(Plate  30),  and  hosts  of  lesser  lights  such  as  Mul- 
ready,  took  up  the  humble  theme,  })ainting  it  in  a 
peculiarly  English  manner.  Even  figure  painters 
like  Gainsljorough  used  it  occasionally  and  effec- 
tively; though  most  of  the  English  painters  aspired 
to  the  historical  picture  of  exalted  theme  —  with 
which,  however,  they  never  succeeded. 

The  French,  too,  have  always  been  painters  of  the 
figure,  though  much  genre  has  come  out  of  Paris. 
Tn  early  years  Watteau,  Pater,  and  Lancret  pro- 
duced a  most  charming  quality  of  small  art;  and 
after  them  Chard  in.  Fragonard,  and  Greuze  depicted 
themes  of  city  and  country  life  that  at  least  re- 
ceived a  warm  welcome  from  the  people.  When 
David  and  Classicism  came  at  the  l)eginning  f)f  the 
French  Revolution,  these  domestic  themes  passed 
under  a  cloud.  They  were  not  forceful  enough  for 
people  in  the  throes  of  revolution,  ami  David  rather 


GENRE  PAINTING  105 

led  the  artistic  mind  toward  scenes  of  Greek  and 
Roman  heroism.  Genre  painting  came  to  the  sur- 
face again  with  Eomanticism  when  Napoleon  had 
made  his  exit  and  France  had" once  more  turned  to 
the  plough  and  the  spindle;  and  the  chief  form  it 
took  upon  itself  under  Eomanticism  was  the  por- 
trayal of  Oriental  life. 

The  picturing  of  the  Orient  is  quite  a  distinct 
branch  of  genre.  In  fact,  it  is  hardly  genre  at  all,  if 
compared  with  the  interiors  of  Steen  or  the  peasants 
of  Ostade.  It  has  apparently  impinged  at  times 
upon  figure-  and  landscape-painting,  and  yet  it  has 
shown  truly  enough  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
every-day  East  without  any  heroic  pose  or  grandilo- 
quence, except  perhaps  in  the  hands  of  painters  like 
Benjamin-Constant.  Decamps,  with  his  Turkish 
courts  and  schools,  his  bashi-bazouks,  camels,  wind- 
ing caravans,  and  shining  minarets,  saw  with  roman- 
tic eyes  perhaps ;  but  he  nevertheless  had  the  point  of 
view  of  the  genre  painter,  and  painted  the  scene  "  all 
of  a  piece,"  regarding  his  figures  more  for  color  and 
light  than  as  figures,  and  the  landscape  more  as  an 
envelope  than  a  setting.  Marilhat  was  of  the  same 
cast  of  mind.  He  did  many  scenes  from  Egyptian 
life,  was  in  love  with  the  East,  and  used  to  sign  him- 
self "  Marilhat  the  Egyptian."  Some  of  the  works 
of  these  men,  with  those  of  Fromentin,  painter  and 
critic,  are  to  be  seen  in  the  upper  galleries  (Thierry 
Collection)  of  the  Louvre  in  Paris.    In  more  modern 


106  STUDIES   IX   PICTURES 

times  Cerome,  Bargue,  and  Huguet  have  used  the 
East  as  a  storehouse  of  properties  useful  in  pictorial 
representations,  and  with  more  or  less  success. 

At  about  the  same  time  that  the  painters  of  the 
Orient  were  flourishing  there  came  into  existence 
what  has  been  called  the  "peasant  genre"  of  Millet, 
C'ourbet,  Breton,  and  otliers.  Perhaps  the  only  thing 
that  puts  it  in  the  genre  classification  is  the  subject. 
In  treatment  these  men  were  really  figure  painters, 
^hough  they  did  scenes  from  intimate  life  that 
i.re  unmistakenly  genre  in  character.  After  a  long 
period  of  viewing  the  peasant  with  indifference  the 
]>ublic  gradually  awakened  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
really  quite  picturesque,  and  Millet's  Sowers,  Clean- 
er.s,  and  Woodsmen  came  into  popular  favor.  Of 
course  when  the  subject  proved  attractive  there  were 
j)lenty  of  painters  to  adojjt  it.  As  a  result  tlie  peas- 
antry of  France  has  crowded  the  walls  of  the  Salons 
for  the  last  thirty  years.  Bastien-Lepage  was  one 
of  the  best  of  the  younger  men,  and  L'Hermitte, 
Lerolle,  Dagnan-Bouveret  have  all  produced  a  good 
quality  of  peasant  genre,  but  always  with  some  re- 
minder of  figure  painting  about  it. 

This  is  true  of  the  military  genre  of  Meissonier 
(Plate  31).  It  is  figure  painting  in  the  little;  his- 
torical work  on  a  microscopic  scale.  No  doubt  Meis- 
sonier got  much  of  his  initiative  from  such  Dutch- 
men as  Terburg  and  Dou.  He  liked  their  technique, 
but  not  their  subject.     He  cared  little  for  humble 


XXXI.— MEISSONlER,  The  Sergeant's  Portrait. 


GENRE  PAINTING  107 

life,  and  never  painted  boors  or  kitchen  interiors  or 
pots  and  pans,  preferring  the  courtier  in  powdered 
wig,  the  soldier  in  his  uniform,  the  scholar  sur- 
rounded by  his  library.  For  these  fine  figures  he 
rather  sacrificed  the  rest  of  his  picture,  which  is  the 
reason  for  saying  he  was  a  figure  painter  in  little. 
Later  on  he  gave  the  proof  of  this  in  his  Napoleonic 
battle  pictures,  which  are  historical  pictures,  and  yet 
are  little  larger  in  size  than  his  other  works.  Every- 
thing he  did  was  diminutive  in  scale.  He  saw  the 
world  through  the  small  end  of  an  opera-glass,  and 
was  a  painter  great  in  little  things.  Whistler  used  to 
sneer  at  him  and  call  his  pictures  "  snuff-box  paint- 
ing " ;  but  they  were  more  than  that.  He  was  a  fine 
craiteman,  but  perhaps  not  a  great  artist. 
"  There  were  a  number  of  painters  who  followed 
Meissonier  in  the  military  genre;  and  a  still  larger 
body  who  accepted  his  technique  and  applied  it  to 
fashionable  life,  boulevard  life,  gay  life,  low  life. 
Moreover,  with  these  followers  the  work  became  more 
genre-like,  more  materialistic.  The  figure  came  to 
have  little  more  importance  than  a  rug,  a  tapestry, 
a  silk  dress,  or  a  piece  of  Empire  furniture.  Sub- 
jects began  to  be  painted  for  their  color,  light,  or 
texture;  and,  finally,  to  show  how  clever  the  painter 
was  in  handling  the  brush.  In  1853  and  1855  the 
French  Minister  of  Fine  Arts  publicly  protested 
against  this  realistic  genre  as  tending  to  do  away 
with  the  ideal  and  the  historical;  but  the  protest 


108  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

was  unlieeded.  Realism  was  in  the  air,  and  the 
intimate  life  upon  canvas  expressed  the  gossipy  spirit 
of  tiie  a^re.  People  for  a  time  really  believed  that 
the  millinery  effects  of  Toulmoiiche,  Heilbiith,  Kiim- 
merer,  and  others  were  great  art.  Then  the  tapestry, 
rug,  and  mirror  pictures  of  Louis  Leloir,  and  the 
red-robed  cardinals  of  Yibcrt  caught  the  fancy. 
Amid  all  this  demonstration  of  ))ad  taste  there  were 
a  few  who  had  the  good  sense  to  admire  the  superbly 
painted  fashionable  genre  of  Alfred  Stevens. 

It  is  not  easy  to  trace  the  many  ramifications  of 
modern  genre  painting.  It  has  pervaded  all  depart- 
ments of  life,  told  of  things  in  all  tenses,  and  ran- 
sacked the  four  quarters  of  the  glol)e  for  the  mate- 
rial of  the  telling.  Effort  is  so  individual  in  these  days 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  classify  painters  by 
schools  or  even  subjects.  Every  painter  is  a  searcher 
after  novelty  on  his  own  account,  and  independent  of 
what  others  may  do  or  think.  Impressionism  is  no 
exception  to  this,  though  the  impressionistic  brother- 
hood holds  together  better  than  some  others.  They 
are  regarded  as  the  "  outs  "  in  art,  and  that  may 
have  something  to  do  with  their  unity.  Opposition 
often  brings  strange  people  into  one  camp.  As  re- 
gards genre  painting  the  impressionists  long  ago 
adopted  it.  Manet,  Degas,  Beraud,  Kaffaelli,  Renoir 
(Plate  32),  Pissarro,  have  produced  it  many  times 
with  subjects  taken  from  low  life  and  middle  life,  and 
with  a  realism  often  too  true  for  general  acceptance. 


GENRE  PAINTING  109 

The  changes  in  genre  painting  which  I  have  out- 
lined in  France  have  been  repeated  with  more  or 
less  distinctness  in  Holland,  Scandinavia,  England, 
and  America.  Germany  has  rather  held  aloof  with 
an  art  of  its  own,  but  if  you  visit  the  modern  gal- 
leries at  Berlin,  Dresden,  and  Munich,  you  will 
find  them  filled  with  genre  pictures.  Austria,  too, 
is  producing  a  new  and  quite  astonishing  kind 
of  genre.  Paris,  however,  has  been  the  center  of  art 
for  many  years,  and  the  reflection  of  its  doings  is 
seen  in  other  countries.  In  this  age  there  is  a  ten- 
dency to  lose  nationality  in  a  universal  cosmopoli- 
tanism. Painters  are  now  great  travellers,  and  pick 
up  not  only  subjects  but  ideas  in  every  land.  And 
the  genre  picture  that  tells  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  foreign  people  was  never  in  greater  demand 
than  at  present.  That  is  why  every  Eoyal  Academy 
or  Society  or  Salon  shows  its  quota  of  paintings 
made  in  Japan  or  the  South  Sea  Islands  or  Egypt 
or  India.  If  the  world  continues  to  grow  demo- 
cratic and  cosmopolitan,  there  is  a  decided  future 
for  genre  painting. 

The  painting  of  still-life — fruits,  flowers,  china, 
pans,  pots,  dead  game — is  so  closely  related  to  genre 
painting  that  it  may  be  spoken  of  in  the  same  breath. 
Painters  have  at  all  times  delighted  in  painting 
morsels — scraps  of  light  or  color  or  texture — just 
for  the  pure  love  of  manipulating  the  brush  and 
pleasing  the  eye  with  an  efEect.    Teniers  was  as  much 


110  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

deliglited  witli  a  brass  pot,  a  stone  jug,  or  a  steel 
breast-plate  as  Chardin  with  a  decanter  of  wine  and 
a  china  cup,  or  Diaz  with  a  bunch  of  carnations. 
In  the  same  way  and  for  a  similar  reason  Vollon 
painted  his  yellow  pumpkin,  as  Monet  his  dead 
pheasants,  and  our  own  Mr.  Chase  his  dead  fish  on 
a  mari^et  table.  Such  pictures  do  not  "  mean  "  much, 
if  you  arc  seeking  a  story  or  a  history  in  the  pic- 
ture; but  they  mean  a  great  deal  if  you  are  clever 
enough  to  see  in  them  tlie  love,  the  verve,  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  painter  in  liis  work.  They  lend 
themselves  to  the  most  delightful  of  color  schemes, 
and  they  may  reveal  the  very  best  quality  of  feeling 
and  pictorial  poetry.  There  is  something  to  admire 
in  almost  every  kind  of  painting,  if  we  have  but  the 
eyes  to  see  it. 


XXXII.- RENOIR,   Yourg   Girls. 


CHAPTER   IX 
THE  ANIMAL  IN  ART 

After  humanity  as  a  subject  in  art  other  things 
are  given  place  as  they  are  closely  or  remotely  re- 
lated to  man.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  animal  life 
about  us  has  come  in  for  some  recognition.  Indeed, 
the  study  of  it  has  been  the  passion  of  the  present 
age.  Lives  of  toil  have  been  given  to  it,  libraries 
of  books  have  been  written  about  it,  portfolios  and 
even  galleries  have  been  filled  with  photographs  of 
it.  Art  has  not  lagged  far  behind  in  this  field.  The 
ffisthetic  view  has  kept  pace  with  the  scientific.  From 
the  earliest  ages  the  artist  has  been  beside  the  his- 
torian in  recreating  the  animal  in  form  and  color; 
some  of  the  finest  pieces  of  ancient  art  represent 
the  dumb  brute;  and  to-day  the  scientific  knowledge 
of  a  Cvivier  or  a  Darwin  is  complemented  by  the 
artistic  knowledge  of  a  Barye  or  a  Troyon. 

And  why  not  animals  in  art?  Why  not  pictures 
of  cattle  and  horses  and  dogs  and  donkeys?  Are 
they  not  just  as  perfect  in  their  way  as  other  forms 
of  life  ?  We  have  passed  that  stage  of  enlightenment 
that  arrogated  to  the  human  form  all  the  beauty  of 
the  world.    We  have  come  to  recognize  that  there  is 

111 


112  STUDIES   IN    PICTURES 

something  more  to  beauty  than  proportion,  regu- 
larity, and  symmetry.  We  now  know  aesthetic  pleas- 
ure in  strength,  movef««al»._relationship,  yes,  even 
in  awkwardness,  clumsiness,  and  what  the  world 
has  been  pleased  to  call  the  ugly.  A4xuth  of  char- 
acter, a  fitness  to -a-tiesigueji  end,  a  proper  embodi- 
ment of  vital  energy,  may  make  animal  life  attractive 
in  spite  of  classic  laws  of  proportion  and  academic 
formulas  of  what  should  constitute  an  ideal. 

This  is  not  applicable  to  the  domestic  animals 
alone — the  ones  that  are  gentle  and  patient.  The 
wild  beasts  of  the  forest  and  the  desert,  even  in  their 
brutal  strength  and  cruel  ferocity,  have  about  them 
a  something  to  be  admired.  Delacroix  and  Barye 
have  shown  it  to  us  in  a  lion  crushing  a  serpent, 
and  in  a  jaguar  devouring  a  hare.  The  idea  of  such 
scenes  seems  repulsive  at  first,  but  was  not  the  ani- 
mal designed  for  that  end,  fitted  for  that  purpose? 
Does  not  that  very  act  of  brutality  betray  the  char- 
acter of  the  brute?  And  is  not  character  the  very 
essence  of  such  art  ? 

For  this  theory  the  ancients  supplied  the  practice, 
and  as  a  rather  exceptional  thing  the  Egyptians  nnd 
Assyrians  did  such  fine  things  that  the  moderns, 
with  all  their  knowledge  nnd  facility,  have  scarcely 
improved  upon  them.  The  great  sphinxes  of  black 
granite,  with  their  lion's  body  and  king's  head,  the 
crouching  rams  that  lined  the  avenues  of  Karnak, 
look  like  curiously  heavy  and  incomplete  sculptures; 


THE  ANIMAL  IN   ART  113 

but  delicacy  of  cutting  would  have  chipped  away  that 
strength  of  mass  which  was  the  very  quality  the 
sculptors  wished  to  show.  The  same  largeness  in 
modelling  is  met  with  in  Assyria ;  but  what  strength, 
what  action,  what  keen  artistic  sense  of  character 
lie  in  their  bas-reliefs?  Some  of  the  best  of  these 
reliefs  are  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  and 
there,  to  this  day,  the  wounded  lioness  drags  herself 
forward  on  her  forelegs,  roaring  out  defiance  at  the 
bowman,  the  great  mastiffs  tug  and  strain  at  the 
leash,  the  ibex  and  the  goat  skulk  amid  the  bushes, 
the  wild  ass  kicks  at  an  imaginary  foe  in  his  flight. 
Superb  in  life  and  power  are  these  sculptures  of 
the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley.  People  to-day  do  a 
more  finical,  fussy,  polished-and-rubbed  sort  of  work 
than  those  who  lived  in  the  days  of  Assur-banipal ; 
but  it  can  hardly  be  called  an  improvement  upon  the 
rendering  of  animal  life. 

Even  the  Greeks,  with  all  their  technical  skill  in 
sculpture,  improved  but  little  upon  the  Assyrians, 
though  the  prancing  steeds  along  the  Parthenon 
frieze  are  full  of "pmver  trnd-lif e.  If  we  may  believe 
Pliny,  the  painters  of  animal  life  in  Greece  must 
have  been  wonderful.  He  tells  us  that  Apelles 
painted  a  troop  of  cavalry  so  realistically  that  other 
horses  neighed  at  the  sight  of  the  picture;  and  that 
Protogenes  rivalled  him  by  the  foam  on  a  dog's 
mouth,  and  the  wonder  in  the  eye  of  a  startled  pheas- 
ant.    The  only  facts,  however,  that  we  have  about 


114  STUDIES    IN     F'lfTURES 

Greek  genre  painting  are  to  be  found  in  Roman  and 
Ponipeian  imitations,  and  they  are  in  no  way  re- 
markable. 

After  Rome  and  under  Early  Christianity  the  ani- 
mal was  used  only  to  illustrate  Bible  story  or  as 
Christian  symbolism.  The  fantastic  forms  of  the 
Roman  world  were  revised  and  enlarged,  so  that 
a  whole  kingdom  of  demons,  griffins,  and  leviathans 
of  monstrous  shape  came  into  existence  as  a  terror 
to  evil-doers.  Eventually  the  whole  representation 
passed  into  the  bizarre  and  was  lost  in  the  gold  back- 
ground of  Byzantine  art. 

When  life  and  landscape  again  came  to  be  studied 
in  the  Early  Renaissance  time  the  animal  was  given 
a  share  of  attention,  but  it  was  a  very  slight  share. 
The  flock  around  St.  Joachim's  shecpfold  was  a 
sorry-looking  collection  of  wooden  shcop;  and  the 
cows  and  horses  that  appeared  in  the  "  Adoration  of 
the  Magi  "  were  grotesque-looking  beasts,  with  a 
semi-human  expression  of  countenance,  and  most 
astonishing  bodies.  Jn  sculpture  some  of  the  Italians, 
like  Donatello  and  Verrocchio,  were  simply  superb 
with  their  horses;  but  the  painters  were  in  no  way  re- 
markable. Rnphael's  horse  was  about  ns  wooden  as 
Paolo  Uccello's,  and  even  Leonardo  used  a  horse  that 
travelled  on  his  hind  legs,  in  true  mcrry-go-round 
fashion.  The  Venetians  were  much  better.  Paolo 
Veronese,  for  example,  painted  wonderful  dogs,  Tin- 
toretto handled  all  animal  life  with  knowledge  and 


THE  ANIMAL   IN   ART  115 

skill,  and  the  Bassani  were  among  the  first  to  paint 
cows  and  sheep  with  a  proper  appreciation  of  their 
purely  animal  qualities. 

The  galleries  of  Italy,  and  Italian  pictures  wher- 
ever found,  have  the  animal  more  or  less  in  evidence ; 
but  unfortunately  people  do  not  often  see  beyond  the 
figures.  The  "  Flight  into  Egypt  "  is  remarkable  for 
the  pretty  face  of  the  young  Madonna  or  the  accom- 
panying children;  the  little  donkey  is  usually  not 
noticed  at  all.  So,  again,  in  the  "  Adoration  of  the 
Magi "  it  is  the  people  that  are  seen ;  few  there  are 
who  stop  to  look  at  the  caparisoned  steeds,  the  at- 
tendent  dogs,  the  cattle  at  the  manger,  though  they 
may  be  the  most  telling  features  of  the  picture. 

At  the  north  the  chief  merit  of  the  Flemings  and 
Dutchmen  in  animal  representation  seems  to  have 
been  a  wearisome  fidelity  to  exterior  facts.  They 
never  grasped  the  meaning  of  brute  life  like  the 
modern  Frenchmen.  There  are,  of  course,  some  ex- 
ceptions to  that  statement — Kubens,  for  example. 
And  then  we  must  not  forget  that  the  careful  study 
of  both  animal  life  and  landscape  really  began  in 
the  Netherlands,  Both  were  emancipated  from  dec- 
orative servitude  there,  and  in  both  cases  a  measure 
of  success  was  reached  without  any  wonderful  mas- 
terpieces being  produced.  One  hears  many  rhapso- 
dies over  Paul  Potter's  "Young  Bull"  at  The  Hague; 
but  the  "  Young  Bull  "  is  not  the  last  word  in  art 
about  the  bovine  family.    It  is  a  good  piece  of  hard 


116  STUDIES  IN   PICTURES 

drawing  wliich  has  resulted  in  a  dead  museum  bull 
that  fcigus  life  with  glass  eyes  and  a  stull'cd  body. 
Cuyp's  cattle  are  much  better  as  smaller,  and  shar- 
ing the  interest  with  landscape;  but  neither  he  nor 
Adrien  van  de  Vclde  nor  Berchem  nor  l)u  Jardin 
ever  reached  that  sympathetic  "truth  of  cattle  paint- 
ing attained  by  such  moderns  ag.  Troyon  ( I'late  3."?) 
and  Jacquc,  or  such  contemporary  painters  as  Mols 
and  Bjorck  —  to  go  far  afield  in  Scandinavia  for 
illustration.  The  Dutch  were  perhaps  too  liieral  in 
their  cattle  painting,  getting  little  more  from  the 
representation  in  art  than  is  obvious  to  the  ordinary 
observer  in  nature. 

Aside  from  Oudry  and  Desportes  the  animal  did 
not  flourish  in  French  art  until  about  the  time  of 
Eomanticism.  The  classicists,  under  the  leader- 
ghip  of  David,  had  little  use  for  anything  so 
inelegant  as  dumb,  driven  cattle;  and  a  horse  was 
only  a  rearing  platform  upon  which  a  hero  posed 
for  his  picture.  It  was  probably  not  until  Clericault 
came,  with  his  passion  for  the  horse,  that  the  animal 
became  of  importance  in  art.  The  sleekness,  the 
swiftness,  the  beauty  of  movement  in  the  horse  he 
painted  many  times  and  with  excellent  results.  He 
admired  also  the  brutal  strength  of  such  beasts  as 
lions  and  tigers,  as  his  many  drawings  in  the  Louvre 
attest  to  this  day.  It  was  this  admiration  of  Geri- 
cault  for  the  purely  physical,  for  the  graceful  action 
of  the  horse,  for  th<'  "  jaw  on   four  ])aws,"   as  the 


THE  ANIMAL   IN   ART       .  117 

lion  has  been  described,  that  was  handed  down  in 
influence  from  Gericault  to  Delacroix,  to  Decamps, 
and  to  that  superb  worker  in  bronze,  Barye,  who 
probably  carried  it  further  and  with  better  results 
than  any  artist  of  modern  times. 

Delacroix  was  a  naturalistic  rather  than  an  aca- 
demic draftsman,  and  he  very  often  slurred  line  to 
gain  an  eifect  of  unity,  mass,  life,  and  motion.  With 
no  subjects  did  he  do  this  more  than  with  lions, 
tigers,  and  horses.  His  horse  is  a  bit  artificial  and 
rather  melodf^maT!?^in  action.  He  never  quite  un- 
derstood that  animal,  but,  probably  with  less  study, 
he  caught  the  true  character  of  the  tiger.  A  snap- 
ping, snarling,  yellow-eyed  mass  of  energy,  willowy 
as  a  serpent  and  just  as  treacherous,  Delacroix  felt 
the  sense  of  power  in  his  long  body  and  ponderous 
muscles,  the  fascination  of  his  skulking,  stealthy 
tread,  and  the  crushing  blow  of  his  enormous  paw. 
These  he  gave  on  canvas  with  such  energy,  such  tell- 
ing effects  of  color  and  motion,  that  we  instantly  feel 
the  force  of  the  impression. 

In  such  a  case  slurred  drawing — any  kind  of  draw- 
ing— seems  justifiable.  Dozens  of  painters  have 
given  tiger  anatomy  better  than  Delacroix,  but  what 
one  of  them  ever  gave  such  tiger  life!  They  frit- 
tered away  the  character  of  the  beast  in  attention  to 
the  petty  details  of  a  glossy  coat  or  the  minutiae  of 
eyes,  mouth,  and  claws.  Delacroix  went  straight  at 
the  salient  points  and  was  content  with  an  effect,  re- 


118  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

gardlcss  of  tlic  means  whoroby  it  wa,s  attained.  In  the 
same  way  Decamps  and  Fromentin  gave  to  the  camel 
his  stilt-like  legs,  his  spare  body  and  long  swinging 
tread,  to  the  donkey  his  quick  step  and  patient  look, 
to  the  Arab  horse  his  sleekness  of  limb  and  dashing 
action.  They  were  all  g^'^k'^g  ^^"  nmnnjii^ic  that 
describe  rather  than  the  details  that  bewilder — they 
were  seeking  the  charactei -joi  iho  animal. 

This  grasp  of  character  seems  to  me  the  very  es- 
sence of  animal  painting.  Each  animal  of  the  field 
or  of  the  forest  has  a  distinct  peculiarity  which 
shows  not  only  in  its  physical  contour,  but  in  its 
habit<^dTsp6^rtionj--uiQScinents;  and  if  these  qualities 
be  truly  given  there  will  be  a  beauty  about  the  beast. 
Consider  the  frightened,  apprehensive  look  of  the 
hyena,  his  bunched  body  and  restless,  sliulHing  tread; 
the  sharp  keen  look  of  the  fox,  his  cocked  ears,  open 
mouth  and  light  footfall;  the  long,  slim  nose  and 
briglit  eyes  of  the  Scotch  stag  hound,  his  spare  body 
and  great  loping  spring;  and  almost  in  the  same 
family,  notice  the  distinct  nature  of  eacli  kind.  It 
is  the  clumsiness  of  the  elephant,  the  ferocity  of  the 
tiger,  the  docility  and  mild  indolence  of  the  cow 
that  in  each  case  makes  for  the  nature  of-44ie  beast. 
Every  species  of  the  animal  kingdom,  whether  do- 
mestic or  wild,  has  a  distinct. xhanrctcr  marking  it 
apart ;  and  whether  tljat^hTrnrct«r,comes  to  us  in  art 
with  weakness  or  force  is  just  in  proportion  as  it 
is  discerned  and  recorded  by  the  painter. 


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THE  ANIMAL  IN  ART  119 

Now  it  is  wortli  while  noticing  that  animal  char- 
acter may  be  of  two  kinds.  There  is  the  true  char- 
acter given  animals  by  nature;  and  there  is  a  false 
character  occasionally  given  them  by  men  when  they 
seek  to  poetize  or  paint  them.  The  true  character 
I  take  to  be  just  what  the  name  "  animal "  implies. 
We  speak  of  the  "  brute  creation,"  and  what  do  we 
mean  by  that  if  not  something  distinctly  lower  than 
humanity,  a  something  not  of  mental,  moral,  or  aes- 
thetic nature,  but  of  physical  and  animal  organiza- 
tion? Without  either  the  logical  or  the  emotional 
faculty  to  any  great  extent,  animal  character  is 
largely  a  result  of  physical  conditions — a  something 
in  direct  opposition  to  man,  whose  physical  nature  is 
supposed  to  be  controlled  by  his-  reasoning  powers. 

I  am  aware  that  there  are  cases  of  exceptional  in- 
telligence in  animals,  but  because  a  dog  may  be 
trained  to  walk  on  his  hind  legs  or  a  pig  to  play 
cards  is  no  argument  for  the  inference  that  it  is  the 
nature  of  dogs  to  walk  on  two  legs,  or  the  nature  of 
pigs  to  gamble;  and  any  painter  who  sought  to  give 
such  a  nature  to  either  dog  or  pig  would  simply  be 
falsifying  the  character.  The  exceptions  do  not 
make  the  rule.  It  is  the  general  run  of  the  race  that 
gives  the  stamp  of  the  race,  and  where  one  picks 
the  exception  he  may  be  specially  true  and  yet  gen- 
erally false. 

Sir  Edwin  Landseer  is  an  example  of  one  who  has 
falsified  the  animal  kingdom  by  giving  it  too  much 


120  STUDIES  L\   PICTURES 

reasoning  power  and  ©iHotional  nature.  He  has  pret- 
tified and  humanized  the  dog  until  the  animal  of 
him  lies  only  in  his  hair.  His  strength,  ferocity, 
and  pure  dog-like  nature  have  all  gone  out  in  sad 
eyes,  facial  expressions,  xind  attitudes. Uiat  ape  hu- 
manity. The  attempt  of  the  painter  in  sucli  pictures 
as  "Dignity  and  Impudence/'  or  "The  Wounded 
Knight,"  was  to  he  humorous  or  pathetic  hy  telling 
a  story  proper  only  to  mankind.  The  dog  in  either 
case  is  put  in  a  false  face  and  made  to  play  at  being 
human.  And  this  is  what  I  should  call  giving  the 
false  character  of  the  animal. 

On  the  contrary,  if  we  turn  from  Landseer's  dogs 
to  the  great  yellow  hounds  of  Velasquez  we  shall 
find  that  the  Spaniard  accepted  the  animal  as  an  ani- 
mal, without  any  sentimentality  or  funny  caricature, 
and  simply  because  he  was  worth  painting  for  his 
true  nature.  His  was  the  purely  physical  portrait 
of  the  dog,  different  in  kind,  but  not  in  method  of 
treatment  from  the  hounds  of  Theseus  that  Shake- 
speare tells  us  were 

"  Bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind, 
So  flewod,  so  sanded;  and  their  heads  are  hung 
Witli  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew; 
Crook-kneed  and  dew-lapped  like  Thessalian  bulls." 

In  h(jth  Shakespeare  and  Velasquez  you  have  the 
true  canine  character  without  distortion.     There  is 


THE  ANIMAL  IN  ART  121 

no  human  element  about  it,  though  it  may  have  a 
certain  intelligence,  approximating  our  own,  as  we 
may  see  in  the  shepherd  dogs  of  Troyon  and  Jacque. 
These  long,  wiry-looking  beasts  understand  their 
duty  thoroughly,  and  there  is  very  acute  comprehen- 
sion in  the  sharp  ear  and  eye,  and  the  head  always 
turning  to  the  shepherd  for  instruction  by  hand  or 
voice.  It  seems  to  be  intelligence  coupled  with  phys- 
ical and  animal  qualities,  but  it  is  not  the  abstract 
half-human  intelligence  that  Landseer  gave  to  the 
shepherd  dog. 

All  the  modern  painters  who  have  had  success  with 
the  animal  have  not  tried  in  any  way  to  disguise 
the  beast  in  him.  Van  Marcke,  Mauve,  Mols,  Lilje- 
fors — even  the  somewhat  overrated  Rosa  Bonheur 
— have  dealt  largely  with  the  material  side,  believ- 
ing that  the  creatures  of  the  earth  needed  no  apology 
from  the  painter  for  the  place  they  occupy  in  the 
plan  of  the  world.  Sometimes  they  require  apology 
for  the  place  they  occupy  on  canvas.  For  success 
in  animal  painting  has  been  vouchsafed  to  only  a 
few.  A  popular  success  has  been  accorded  such 
painters  as  Verboeckhoven  with  his  sheep,  as,  be- 
fore him,  Wouverman  with  his  horses,  but  neither 
of  them  deserved  it.  Verboeckhoven  was  a  most 
persistent  recorder  of  the  tomb-stone-  and  porcelain 
sheep,  and  could  sometimes  paint  a  very  fair  sheep- 
skin; but  for  portraying  the  character  of  the  ani- 
mal he  was  never  in  the  same  class  with  men  like 


122  STUDIES  IN   PICTURES 

Millet  or  Jacque  or  Mauve  or  Segautini.  The  last- 
named  was  somewhat  niaunered  iu  method,  and 
Mauve  was  often  lacking  technically,  hut  hy  one 
means  or  another  they  succeeded  in  giving  tin'  feel- 
ing of  life. 

In  our  own  country  some  years  ago  Audubon 
made  a  great  reputation  as  a  painter  of  birds,  but 
his  success  was  more  ornithological  than  artistic. 
His  drawings  are  faithful  records  of  fact,  but  as  art 
they  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the  black-and- 
white  illustrations  of  Charles  Livingston  Bull  that 
appear  from  time  to  time  in  the  American  maga- 
zines. Perhaps  the  ablest  painter  of  birds  and  wild 
animals  at  the  present  day  is  the  Swedish  artist, 
Bruno  Liljefors.  His  ducks  and  geose  and  pheas- 
ants are  life-like  to  a  startling  degree;  and  his 
painting  of  such  animals  as  foxes  trotting  through 
the  woods  or  jumping  over  fences  is  worthy  of  the 
highest  praise,  not  only  for  its  originality  of  theme 
but  for  its  skill  in  execution.  An  American  painter 
of  high  rank,  Wiuslow  Homer,  occasionally  does  some- 
thing of  this  kind  (Plate  35)  that  is  comparable  in 
its  strength  and  beauty  to  the  work  of  Liljefors. 

Aside  from  the  recording  of  churaeter  in  beast 
and  bird  there  is,  or  should  be,  a  deajxati^^jnotive 
behind  all  animal  painting.  Cattle,  for  instance, 
apart  from  indolence,  or  cud-chewing,  or  stamping 
flies,  or  standing  in  pools  of  water,  often  have  beau- 
tiful color,  with  forms  that  lend  themselves  to  iiu- 


UJ 


■^     o 


5: 

o 


5: 

I. 
>' 

X 
X 
X 


THE  ANIMAL  IN  ART  123 

pressive  drawing.  Troyon  (as  also  Willem  Maris), 
saw  in  the  shadowed  sides  of  Holland  cattle  spots 
of  red  that  were  as  deep  and  as  fine  in  quality  as 
old  mahogany;  and  his  barnyard  chickens,  painted 
in  huddled  groups  at  feeding  time,  are  often  charm- 
ing combinations  of  variegated  hues. 

Just  so  with  the  horses  that  Degas  has  shown  us 
on  the  race  track,  and  that  Besnard  has  painted 
wading  in  the  water,  or  moving  along  the  red  hills 
under  the  bright  sunlight  of  Morocco.  They  are 
not  only  beautiful  in  form  and  graceful  in  move- 
ment, but  they  have  hTre-«iid  texture,  and  make  up 
decorative  patterns  on  canvas  quite  as  worthy  to  be 
framed  in  gold  and  hung  in  the  drawing-room  as 
pictures  of  landscape  or  of  humanity.  Why  not? 
We  may  arrogantly  take  away  all  reason  from  the 
brute,  but  we  cannot  change  the  beauty  of  the 
leopard's  spots,  nor  deny  the  serpentine  grace  of  his 
finely  modelled  body.  The  animal  has  and  holds  a 
distinct  place  in  nature.  Why  not  a  distinct  place 
in  art? 


CHAPTER    X 
LANDSCAPE   AND   MARINE  PAINTING 

A  KNOWLEDGE  of  landscape  seems  to  have  been 
about  the  last  thing  arrived  at  by  man.  Hills, 
woods,  and  plains  have  been  his  dwelling  ])lace 
in  all  generations,  but  not  until  modern  times  did 
he  study  them  or  try  pictorially  to  understand 
them.  He  believed  they  were  all  made  for  his  mate- 
rial needs — the  hills  for  fortresses,  the  woods  for 
timber,  the  meadows  for  cattle  and  agriculture.  He 
thought  them  gay  or  sad  as  he  was  gay  or  sad;  he 
twisted  them,  worked  them,  destroyed  them;  but 
when  before  the  fifteenth  century  did  he  ever  think 
them  beautiful  in  themselves  and  indi^pcndcnt  of  Ins 
own  mood  or  condition? 

In  art  the  landscape  has  been  the  very  latest  word, 
the  most  modern  subject  with  which  the  painter's 
brush  has  dealt;  and  yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has 
existed  from  the  beginning.  That  contradiction  may 
be  e.xplained  by  saying  that  it  was,  at  first,  merely  a 
background  for-figHFes.  All  ancient  painting  was  fig- 
ure painting,  and  landscape  was  poor  trumpery  un- 
less it  pieced  out  the  story  about  the  man,  or  lielpcd 
the  decorative  quality  of  the  picture.  At  best  it  was 
merely  a  symbol  and  not  the  apparent  thing.     One 

124 


LANDSCAPE  AND  MARINE   PAINTING         125 

tree  did  service  for  a  forest,  a  round  line  represented 
a  mountain  top,  three  zigzags  symbolized  a  river 
or  an  ocean.  Even  the  Greeks  employed  this  short- 
hand in  their  vase  paintings  (though  they  also  pro- 
duced a  more  realistic  background  in  their  wall 
frescoes),  and  after  Eome  the  Christians  accepted 
the  tradition,  or  at  least  produced  a  symbolic  land- 
scape of  their  own.  Thus  in  the  tenth  century  a 
blue  tree  with  red  apples,  a  snake  wound  about  it, 
a  man  on  one  side  and  a  woman  on  the  other,  with 
four  zigzag  lines  about  the  whole,  symbolized  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  the  Four  Elvers,  the  Temptation, 
and  the  Fall.  The  coloring  of  these  landscapes  was 
generally  arbitrary,  not  natural ;  there  were  no  shad- 
ows, no  relief,-iiQ  perspective,  no  sky,  no  sunlight. 

When  Giotto  and  the  Lorenzetti  at  Sienna  came, 
this  symbolic  landscape  began  to  totter.  They  tried 
to  introduce  something  truer  to  nature  in  sky,  trees, 
and  hills,  but  were  always  hampered  by  the  im- 
portance of  their  figures.  This  is  true  of  all  Early 
Eenaissance  painting.  The  landscape,  however  fine, 
never  got  beyond  a  bat;kground.  Even  with  Peru- 
gino  (Plate  36),  Leonardo,  and  Eaphael  the  trees 
were  of  the  willow-switch  variety,  the  rocks  fan- 
tastic, the  sky  and  clouds  hard,  the  distance  blue, 
the  foreground  walnut-brown.  Very  beautiful  are 
the  landscapes  by  Costa  and  Francia  at  Bologna; 
they  are  quite  charming  in  their  feeling  for  space 
and  light,  but  always  commanding  figures  occupy 


126  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

the  foreground.  The  Venetians  were  far  ahead  of 
the  Florentines  and  Bolognese  in  this,  and  some  of 
the  landscapes  back  of  the  figures  in  pictures  by 
Titian,  Giorgione,  and  Moretto  are  of  incompara- 
ble excellence;  but  again  the  figures  absorb  the  chief 
attention.  This  held  true  until  after  the  time  of 
Giulio  Komano.  In  (Jiulio's  wake  came  two  Ro- 
manized P'renchnien,  I'oussin.  and  Claude  Lorraine, 
who  conceived  the  idea  of  a  landsca])e  that  should 
match  the  classic  figures  then  produced  in  the 
Roman  school.  If  heroic  figures,  why  not  heroic 
landscapes?  If  men  were  of  Olympian  magnificence, 
why  not  grandeur  in  the  Olympian  mountain,  grove, 
and  meadow? 

In  the  hands  of  Claude  the  classic  Arcadia  became 
something  more  than  a  background.  His  figures  were 
much  reduced  in  size  and,  though  they  gave  the  title 
to  the  picture,  the  greater  interest  hung  upon  the 
landscape.  The  whole  conception -w«»-  elegant  and 
granxlitJ5cr-( Plate  37).  There  were  long  views  of  hill 
and  valley,  sylvan  groves,  flowing  streams,  peopled 
harbors,  Corinthian  temples,  Roman  aqueducts, 
mythological  groups;  and,  of  course,  the  object  of 
it  all  was  to  suggest  the  ideal  spot  of  earth,  the  for- 
mer Garden  of  the  Gods.  The  work  was  panoramic, 
slightly  theatrical;  and  yet  not  devoid  of  poetry, 
shrewd  knowledge  of  nature,  and  considerable  skill 
in  execution.  Claude  was  an  exceedingly  clever  artist, 
and  in  many  ways  a  remarkable  man  for  his  time; 


XXXVI.— PERUGINO,   Madonna  and   St.   Bernard   (detail).     S.   M.   Maddalena,   Florence. 


LANDSCAPE   AND   MARINE   PAINTING         127 

but  hardly  the  greatest  landscape  painter  in  all  art, 
as  some  would  have  us  think.  And  yet  he  was  a 
JLeader,  arid  an  inaugurator  of  something  new. 

Poussin's  conception  took  the  same  general  direc- 
tion as  that  of  Claude.  If  anything,  it  was  more 
limited  in  resource  and  conventional  in  material, 
though  such  a  superb  landscape  as  the  large  one  in 
the  Salle  Carre  of  the  Louvre  is  not  limited  in  any 
way.  Both  of  them  threw  much  force  into  sweep- 
ing hill  lines  and  elegant  tree-forms;  and  both  of 
them  painted  a  generalized  type  of  what  nature 
might  or  could  or  should  be,  which  was  somewhat 
removed  from  the  real  thing. 

These  two  men  formed  the  basis  of  what  is  known 
in  art  as  the  classic,  landscape,  and  their  example, 
when  taken  up  later  on,  became  known  as  "  the 
Claude-Poussin  tradition."  It  had  a  powerful  influ- 
ence in  all  directions  for  many  years,  and,  indeed, 
is  not  quite  forgotten  to-day.  Many  of  the  Dutch- 
men— Wynants,  Euisdael,  Both — were  influenced  by 
it,  in  spite  of  the  local  subjects  which  they  portrayed ; 
in  England  Wilson  and  Turner  adopted  it  with  modi- 
fications ;  and  in  France  it  was  taken  up  anew  by  the 
academicians  at  the  time  of  the  French  Eevolution. 
But  the  academicians  did  not  improve  it.  David 
used  it  as  a  mere  background  for  his  Greek  figures, 
while  Aligny,  Bertin,  and  others,  made  of  it  a  beau- 
tiful example  of  seliect"ieTiiptiness. 

Like  all  classic  art,  the  classic  landscape  was  ideal, 


128  STUDIES   IN   riCTI'RES 

with  na  local  or  iiulividiial  charaftor.  The  tree,  with 
that  peculiarity  about  it  that  marks  the  oak,  the  eltn, 
or  the  pine,  was  seldom  seen.  Natuic  was  acade- 
mized,  exalted,  expanded,  glorified.  Of  course  it  be- 
came only  so  much  lifeless  stage  setting.  And  yet  like 
stage  scenery  it  had  a  great. show  of  grandeur  and 
magnificence  about  it.  A  certain  mock-heroism 
found  its  way  amid  the  quiet  hills  and  valleys  until 
even  the  skies  and  trees  and  brooks  put  on  an  heroic 
stare.  And,  after  all,  it  was  done  with  a  good  deal 
of  skill.  The  classicists  were  learned  enough  in  the 
methods  of  art,  but  when  they  began  to  turn  nature 
into  a  stage  setting,  it  became  apparent  that  the 
learning  was  there  but  nature  was  not.  They  fol- 
lowed a  tradition  and  produced  only  a — tradition. 
Wliat  else  could  have  been  expected  ? 

About  1825  there  came  about  a  revolt  from  the 
classic  standard.  The  grand  landscape  of  the 
academicians,  of  which  there  are  enough  and  to 
spare  in  every  French  museum,  did  not  satisfy.  It 
was  palpably  artificial,  bloodless,  colorless.  The 
.sentiment  as  well  as  the  form  of  it  was  a  distor- 
L,^  tion.  The  whole  conception  needed  reformation. 
Those  who  advocated  a  revolt — Gericault,  Delacroix, 
and  others — were  called  romanticists,  and  tlie  new 
movement  they  inaugurated  was  known  a.s  Roman- 
ticism. It  was  in  reality  not  so  much  a  reform 
as  a  rushing  to  the  other  extreme.  The  classicists 
had  manufactured  an  ideal  tree,  perfect  in  trunk. 


LANDSCAPE   AND   MARINE   PAINTING         129 

limb,  and  branch;  the  romanticists  produced  a 
twisted^iorn,  and  ragged  tree.  Classic  skies  were 
serene,  streams  and  lakes  were  placid,  groves  were 
peaceful,  temples  were  majestic;  romantic  skies  were 
overcg,st  and  dismal,  waters  were  dark  and  myste- 
rious, groves  were  ghostly  haunts  of  robbers,  castles 
were  ruined  monuments  of  tragic  history.  Again 
Classicism  had  insisted  upon  outline  drawing,  but 
Eomanticism  slurred  it  in  favor  of  color  in  patches 
of  solid  pigment,  was  weird  in  lights,  and  mysteri- 
ous in  shadows.  By  throwing  its  strength  into  color 
and  ensemble,  Eomanticism  sought  to  convey  a  senti- 
ment or  ieeliag-aiieut  nature,  rather  than  the  appear- 
ance of  nature  itself. 

But  for  all  that  Poussin  had  tried  to  make  of 
nature  something  heroic,  and  Delacroix  had  given 
it  romance,  sadness,  weirdness,  mystery,  it  is  in  real- 
ity neither  one  nor  the  other.  Both  men  and  both 
schools  were  distorting  trees  and  hills  and  skies  to 
make  them  chime  with  the  sentiment  of  the  stories 
told.  What  cares  nature  for  the  lonely  rider  by 
night,  the  storm-beaten  cavalier  on  the  desert  heath, 
the  Knight-Templar  carrying  away  Eebecca  from 
the  burning  castle  ?  Why  should  the  trees  bend  like 
sad  willows,  the  foliage  droop,  the  grass  wave  dirge- 
like along  the  gorge  of  Eoncesvalles  when 

''  Roland  bold  and  Oliver 
And  every  paladin  and  peer 
On  Roncesvalles  died  "  ? 


130  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

Both  points  of  view  were  untrue.  Nature  has  no 
sentiment.  "  The  last  of  thy  brothers  might  vanish 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  and  not  a  needle  of  the 
pine  branches  would  tremble."  To  make  nature  emo- 
tional is  to  endow  it  with  human  characteristics, 
which  it  docs  not  possess.  The  man  behind  tlie  brush 
may  become  emotional,  and  in  his  landscape  show 
a  sentiment,  a  poetic  feeling,  which  is  perfectly 
proper;  but  to  make  the  landscape  itself  the  possessor 
of  a  subjective  sentiment,  as  in  the  work  of  some 
of  the  classicists  and  romanticists,  is  quite  another 
thing.  The  one  gives  a  poetic  view  such  as  we  asso- 
ciate with  the  landscapes  of  Corot;  the  other  simply 
puts  nature  ^iB-A-fftiflfrface. 

Romanticism  did  not  last  long.  It  was  too  extrav- 
agant for  permanent  acceptance,  and  yet  out  of  it 
came  good.  The  generati(m  that  followed — the  Fon- 
taincbleau-Barbizon  painters — saw  that  both  Classi- 
cism and  Romanticism  were  false  in  sentiment;  and 
nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  the  flight  to  the 
forest  of  Fontainebleau  for  inspiration.  But  the 
flight  was  not  immediate  nor  hasty.  We  are  told  that 
Constal5TelTie  Englishman  set  the  pace  by  exhibiting 
his  "Hay-Wain"  in  the  Salon  of  1824,  and  that 
he  was  responsible  for  the  direction  Rousseau,  Dupre, 
and  others  took.  It  is  not  probable.  Rousseau  and 
Pupre  were  only  twelve  years  old  in  1824,  and  others 
of  the  band  were  proportionately  young.  There  was 
no  "school"   until  long  after   1824.     The   French 


XXXVIII.— COROT,   Landscape. 


■^ 


LANDSCAPE  AND  MARINE   PAINTING         131 

painters,  when  they  began  to  paint,  went  to  the 
Louvre  and  studied  Hobbema  and  Ruisdael,  just  as 
Constable  and  Gainsborough  before  them  had  done 
in  England.  It  was  the  study  of  the  Dutchmen  for 
technique,  and  Fontainebleau  forest  for  a  model,  that 
finally  produced  the  celebrated  school  of  French 
landscapists. 

It  was  not  until  after  1835  that  the  new  point 
of  view  began  to  make  itself  apparent.  The  new 
landscape  was  not  an  academic  invention  nor  a  ro- 
mantic concoction,  but  a  discovery.  The  painters 
of  Fontainebleau  and  Barbizon  found  out  that  nature 
was  beautiful  quite  aside  from  man  and  his  doings 
— beautiful,  all  by  itself,  with  never  a  thought  of  hu- 
manity. To  them  the  charm  of  the  hills  and  valleys, 
the  grandeur  of  the  forest,  the  lowliness  of  the  mead- 
ows, the  mists  moving  over  the  ponds  and  marshes, 
the  radiance  of  dawn  and  dusk,  the  flame  of  sunlight, 
the  passage  of  companies  of  clouds, -the  harmony  of 
light,  air,  and  color,  all  constituted  a  new  faith,  a 
new  religion  of  art,  taken  up  with  sincerity  and 
followed  with  the  ardor  of  true  belief.  The  nature 
of  the  Dutchmen  was  enlarged  and  recreated,  the  true 
character  of  landscape  was  established,  and  great  art 
was  the  final  result. 

There  was  nothing  distorted  about  this  new  land- 
scape. Rousseau  would  have  no  twisting  of  nature 
to  suit  the  sentiment  of  classic  or  mediseval  heroes. 
His  trees  did  not  grow  dignified  when  Caesar  passed. 


132  STUDIES   IN   PICTURES 

nor  inolanolioly  wlien  liolaiid  diod.  Thcv  changod 
only  with  nature's  wimlt-i,  lights,  and  colors,  lie  and 
his  contemporaries  took  nature  as  they  found  her, 
not  as  they  imagined  her;  but  owing  to  tlieir  keen 
perceptions  they  found  her  ^  groat  poem — a  sorae- 
tliing  they  could  translate  into  form  and  color  and 
thus  recreate  upon  canvas.  They  were  wrapped  up 
in  the  sentiment  of  light,  air,  and  color ;  and  unless 
we  look  at  their  work  from  that  point  of  view  we 
shall  fail  to  understand  them  as  did  the  people  of 
their  day.  Theirs  was  the  poetry,  not  of  history  nor 
of  romance,  but  of  visual  Jieauties.  There  was  no 
factitious  or  literary  character  about  it.  It  was  a 
reality  seen  from  a  poetic  point  of  view,  with  an  en- 
thusiasm and  a  feeling  in  its  portrayal  that  made 
of  it  poetic  art. 

Corot,  Kousseau,  Diaz,  Duprc,  Daubigny  are  not 
easily  understood  even  at  the  present  day.  That  may 
be  l)ecause  the  majority  of  their  pictures  suggest 
rather  than  realize.  By  that  I  mean  they  are  done 
broadly  with  a  full  free  brush  which  blurs  out  all  the 
little  features  and  emphasizes  the  gtcaLianes  (Plate 
38).  If  v'lu  pa  in  I  leaves  you  will  never  see  the  trees, 
if  you  insist  u|)nn  grass  blades  you  will  lose  the 
breadth  and  depth  of  the  meadows,  if  you  draw  every 
pebble  on  the  beacli  you  will  have  a  collection  of 
stones,  but  not  a  seashore.  All  the  Fontaincblcau 
painters  painted  in  a  small  way  at  first.  Jt  took 
them  years  to  get  over  it.     Finally  they  foun<l  "nt 


LANDSCAPE  AND  MARINE   PAINTING         133 

that  nature  required  in  art  not  a  classicist  to  distort, 
nor  a  romanticist  to  exaggerate,  nor  a  copyist  to  imi- 
tate; but  ajovcr  to  interpret.  Then  they  began  their 
later  and  nobler  style  of  suggestive  treatment.  It 
is  hardly  worth  while  to  repeat  the  story  of  their 
struggles  and  disappointments.  It  is  familiar 
knowledge.  Their  art  is  now  triumphant  and  al- 
ways will  remain  good  art,  however  much  styles 
may  change. 

To  pass  from  these  men  to  Monet,  Pissarro,  Sisley, 
and  others  is  quite  a  change,  but  not  necessarily  a 
change  for  the  worse.  The  impressionists  are,  in 
measure,  the  descendan4s.~at..CQXot-and  Kousseau. 
They  have  pushed  the  inquiry  into  nature  farther, 
found  a  newer  view  of  color  and  light,  and  a  newer 
use  for  pigments — that's  all.  Impressionism  is  not 
a  fad.  Of  course  there  is  extravagance  about  it. 
That  cannot  be  helped.  But  it  is  an  advance  on 
the  older  art  in  many  ways.  It  has,  for  instance, 
revised  the  whole  scale  of  light,  and,  by  placing  pure 
color  on  the  canvas  in  dots  and  points,  created  a 
more  realistic  effect  of  sunlight.  The  scale  of  shadow 
has  been  raised  to  correspond,  and  "  the  colored 
shadow  "  has  taken  the  place  of  the  brown,  gray,  or 
black  tones  that  were  never  true  of  nature  at  any 
time.  Finally  a  drawing  by  masses  of  color  and  light 
has  been  substituted  for  rims,  outlines  and  patches; 
and  the  atmospheric  envelope  has  been  properly  por- 
trayed as  colored  air. 


134  STUDIES  IN   PICTURES 

In  fact.  Impressionism,  aside  from  its  new  point 
of  view,  has  revised  the  methods  and  the  materials 
of  art,  and  that  in  itself  is  an  achievement.  Being 
a  new  departure  people  smile  at  it,  deny  its  truth  of 
color,  fail  to  grasp  its  method  of  drawing,  and  com- 
pletely overlook  its  aim.  But  when  in  the  history  of 
art  was  a  new  movement  treated  otherwise  ?  Twenty 
years  hence,  when  our  focus  and  sympathies  are 
properly  adjusted,  we  shall  wonder  at  our  blindness 
in  not  seeing  the  really  excellent  tilings  in  Impres- 
sionism sooner. 

During  all  the  nineteenth  century  France  luis  led 
the  world  in  landscape,  and  the  different  movements 
there  have  met  with  varying  response  elsewhere.  In 
our  own  country,  for  instance,  the  Fontainebleau  men 
and  their  pictures  had  some  weight  with  Homer 
Martin,  Inness,  Wyant,  and  others;  and  any  of  our 
modern  exhibitions  will  show  what  influence  Claude 
Monet  has  had  with  the  younger  men.  In  the  same 
way  the  Scotch  painters  have  followed  Corot,  and  the 
Srandinavians  Monet.  Dutch  landscape,  with  the 
iMaris  and  others,  has  been  more  local  perhaps;  but 
in  a  large  sense  it,  too,  has  paralleled  if  not  followed 
the  Fontainebleau  work. 

All  this  is  applicable  to  marine  painting,  l)ocause 
pictures  of  the  sea  have  been  and  are  painted  by  the 
very  landscape  painters  we  have  been  considering. 
The  thome,  however,  is  hanlor  to  handle,  because 
vaster  in  volume  and  less  marked  in  peculiar  fea- 


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LANDSCAPE  AND  MARINE   PAINTING         135 

tures.  The  sea  is  like  the  Alps  or  Niagara — some- 
thing that  only  a  universal  mind  and  a  master  hand 
can  bring  effectively  to  canvas.  Knowing  the  diffi- 
culties of  producing  a  picture  out  of  a  great  reach 
of  sky  and  water  many  painters  have  avoided  the 
open  sea,  and  in  its  place  produced  shore  scenes, 
harbor  entrances,  ships  at  anchor,  and  the  like.  In 
other  words,  they  have  compromised  with  nature  by 
introducing  the  human  element.  This  does  not  pro- 
duce, has  not  at  least  produced,  the  best  quality  of 
sea  picture,  though  it  has  resulted  in  a  more  popular 
kind  of  art. 

All  the  early  painters  painted  the  harbor  entrance 
with  ships  and  sails  and  flying  flags;  but  just  who 
was  the  first  painter  of  the  sea  would  be  difficult 
to  say.  The  first  ones  to  make  humanity  subordinate 
to  water  effect  were  Claude  Lorraine  and  Salvator 
Eosa  in  Italy,  and  Simon  de  Vlieger,  Van  Goyen, 
Van  de  Velde,  Cuyp,  Backhuisen,  Van  der  Capelle, 
and  others  in  Holland.  They  all  came  about  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  their  pic- 
tures still  remain  to  us,  in  abundance,  on  the  walls 
of  the  Italian,  French,  and  Dutch  galleries. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  marine  painting 
has  followed  the  same  course  of  development  as  land- 
scape painting,  and  in  France,  with  Vernet,  Dela- 
croix, Dupre,  Courbet,  Boudin,  and  ]\Ionet,  has  re- 
sulted in  very  similar  effects.  It  is  not  even  to-day 
a  very  conspicuous  branch  of  painting,  but  by  itself 


136  STUDIES  IN   PICTURES 

considered  it  is  capable  of  revealiiiy;  imicli,  of  pleas- 
ing much.  The  wonderful  translucent  and  rellected 
color  that  Monet  and  Alexander  Harrison  show  us  in 
the  sea  is  not  more  heautiful  than  the  feeling  of  its 
vastness  as  seen  in  Dupre's  work,  or  the  sense  of  its 
majestic  power  as  revealed  by  Winslow  Homer  (Plate 
39).  The  only  difficulty  is  that  the  sea  is  most  too 
sublime  to  be  grasped  by  either  poet  or  painter,  and 
every  effort  is,  must  be,  something  of  a  compromise. 
That  much  may  be  said  of  all  painting.  No  painter 
has  ever  yet  done  what  he  would;  he  has  done  what 
he  could.  That  fact,  with  the  miuiy  distortions  of 
purpose  that  time  and  place  and  circumstance  have 
wrought  in  pictures  should  give  us  pause  in  making 
judgments  about  them.  The  pictures  in  a  gallery  are 
at  best  only  the  reminders  of  high  aspiration  and  no- 
ble ideals.  Unlike  Shakespeare's  pages  they  cannot 
be  eternally  revised,  reproduced,  ami  ke])t  alive. 
They  are  fading  slowly  into  ashes;  and  what  they 
liave  to  say  to  us,  with  all  their  beautiful  way  of  say- 
ing it,  is  becoming  less  legible  year  by  year.  Yet  the 
wisest  and  most  profound  of  pictorial  thoughts,  the 
most  beautiful  and  ornate  of  pictorial  settings  are 
now  strewn  for  us  along  the  walls  of  galleries;  and  it 
behooves  us  to  read  and  ])ond<r  and  sec  while  the 
vision  remains  to  us.  Wc  shall  see  wrongly  and 
perhaps  confuse  things  good  with  things  bad;  but 
in  the  end  we  shall  gain  something  worth  having,  and 
be  the  better  for  our  experience. 


BOOKS  BY  JOHN  C  VAN  DYKE 

Professor   of  the   History  of   Art    in    Rutgers    College 
PUBLISHED   BY  CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

The  Meaning  of 
Pictures 

With  31  full-page  illustrations.     lamo,  $i.a5  net 

"  It  may  be  questioned  if  any  other  book  of  its  scope 
has  ever  shown  'the  meaning  of  pictures'  in  a  way  that 
will  make  it  so  clear  to  the  average  English  reader." 

—  The  Dial. 

"A  book  that  is  always  calm  and  cool  and  right. ^' 

— New  York  Evening  Post. 

**  Essentially  sound  and  rational." — Outlook. 

"  We  could  ask  nothing  better  for  the  training  of  art 
taste  in  America  than  the  wide  circuladon  and  careflil 
reading  of  this  sound  and  sensible  introduction." 

—  7'be  Congregationalist. 

"  An  unusual  quality  in  art  criticism,  plain  common 
sense  with  a  delightful  avoidance  of  technical  jargon." 

— New  York  Sun. 

"  'The  Meaning  of  Pictures'  has  in  abundant  measure 
a  happy  kind  of  originality,  the  most  genuine  sort  of  help- 
fulness,  and  rare  power  to  stimulate." — Boston  Herald. 


BY  PROFESSOR  JOHN   C.  VAN   DYKE 


Nature  for  Its 
Own  Sake 

First  Studies  in  Natural  Appearances 

i2ino,  $1.50 

'•  No  one  can  read  it  without  having  his  knowledge 
of  nature  enlarged,  his  curiosity  quickened,  and  his  sen- 
sitiveness to  the  beauty  that  is  all  about  him  in  the  world 
increased  and  stimulated." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"  He  writes  clearly  and  simply  and  indulges  in  Httle 
rhetoric  or  false  sentiment.      His  '  first  studies,'  therefore, 
will    probably    reveal    to    many    people   many    things    of 
which  they  were  unaware." — Thg  Nation. 

"A  series  of  interesting  and  distinctly  original  essays." 

— Philadelphia  Public  Ledger. 

'•A  book  of  uncommon  merit,  first,  in  its  point  of 
view,  and,  second,  in  the  peculiar  skill  with  which  the 
subject  of  nature  is  handled." — Washington  Post. 

"A  book  on  nature  widely  different  from  anything 
yet  written,  and  fresh,  suggestive,  and  delightful." 

— New  York  Times. 

"A  book  for  all  nature  lovers.  ...  A  most 
delightful  vade  mecum.*' 

— Bliss  Carman  in  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. 


BY   PROFESSOR   JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE 


The    Desert 

Further  Studies  in  Natural 
Appearances 

With  frontispiece,    izmo,  $1.25  net 

"The  reader  who  once  submits  to  its  spell  will  hardly 
lay  it  aside  until  the  last  page  is  turned." 

— The  Spectator  (London). 

"This  charming  volume  comes  as  strong  wine  indeed 
after  the  tepid  rose-water  of  books  dealing  with  snails  and 
daffodils  in  suburban  gardens.  Mr.  Van  Dyke  unques- 
tionably knows  his  desert;  he  has  the  true  wanderer's  eye 
for  its  essential  fascination." — T/ie  Athenteum  (London). 

**No  virgin  rush  of  young  impressions,  but  an  adult 
mingling  of  vision  and  criticism  in  a  style  that  engages 
without  startling  the  attention." — London  Academy. 

"Strange  and  curious  reading,  this  book  of  the  desert, 
and  has  all  the  fascination  of  things  unaccustomed. ' ' 

— New  York  Tribune. 

"The  writer's  personality  is  carefully  subordinated, 
but  one  cannot  help  feeling  it  strongly;  that  of  a  man 
more  sensitive  to  color  than  to  form,  enthusiastic,  but  with 
a  stern  hand  on  his  own  pulse." — Atlantic  Mo?ithly. 


BY  PROFESSOR  JOHN   C.  VAN    DYKE 


Art  for  Art's  Sake 

Seven  University  Lectures  on  the 
Technical  Beauties  of  Painting 

With   24    reproductions   of  representative 
paintings.     i2mo,    $1.50 

'*  One  of  the  best  books  on  art  that  has  ever  been 
published  in  this  country." — Boston  Transcript. 

<♦  We  consider  it  the  best  treatise  on  the  technic  of 
painting  for  general  readers." — The  Nation. 

"  Mr.  Van  Dvke  is  very  good  reading  indeed,  and 
withal  remarkably  clear  and  precise  in  explaining  much 
that  shapes  itself  but  hazily  in  the  brain  of  those  interested 
in  art." — London  Spectator. 

*«  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  book  in  English  from 
which  one  can  learn  more  of  what  pictures  are  and  why 
they  are  admired." — Dr.  Talcott  Williams. 

"  Has  all  the  recommendations  that  are  to  be  looked 
for  in  essays  of  the  kind.  They  take  a  broad  survey, 
they  deal  with  the  points  that  it  is  worth  while  to  know 
about,  they  are  perfectly  lucid,  and  they  are  very  charm- 
ing in  their  literary  art." — New  York  Sun. 

"Temperate  and  appreciative." — Atlantic   M-jfithly. 

"  Written  in  an  easy,  entertaining  style." 

— New  York  Tril/une. 


BY  PROFESSOR   JOHN   C.  VAN    DYKE 

The  Opal  Sea 

Continued    Studies   in    Impressions   and 
Appearances.     With  Frontispiece 

i2mo,  $1.25  net 

"  The  volume  is  so  simple  that  a  child  can  understand 
it,  and  yet  so  profound  that  the  most  learned  student  of 
esthetics  will  find  in  it  food  for  thought.  We  have  reread 
it  from  sheer  delight.  ...  It  is  exquisite  in  its  descrip- 
tion, and  withal  scientific." — Baltimore  Sun. 

*'  The  book  is  not  confined  to  the  sea  in  any  one  aspect, 
but  is  full  of  all  sorts  of  curious  learning  about  sea-bounded 
lands,  strange  voyages  and  the  living  things  above  and  in 
tKe  sea.  The  lover  of  salt  water  may  open  it  at  any  page 
and  find  something  that  attracts  and  holds  the  attention." 

— New  York  Evening  Sun. 

**It  is  a  book  to  read,  to  enjoy,  to  pick  up  at  odd 
times,  to  dip  into  like  a  sea  bath,  to  make  a  companion  of 
on  wind-swept  ocean  beaches  or  by  the  still  fireside.  The 
author  has  the  power  of  taking  us  with  him,  giving  us  his 
own  freedom  of  travel  and  the  wonderful  harvest  of  his 
eye  and  mind.  No  one  can  read  this  book  without 
knowing  the  sea  better  or  without  loving  it  more." 

—Columbia  (S.  C.)  State. 

*•  There  is  no  book  on  the  sea  quite  like  this  remark- 
able little  volume." 

_,    -  ,  „  _j  (Am.    Seaman's 

_G.  McPherson  Hunter,  |  p^.^^^  g^^j^^^^ 

**  A  fascinating  book  on  a  fascinating  theme." 

— Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

**  As  fascinating  as  a  romance,   full  of  the  poesy  of  the 

v/atersandthe  rhythm  of  the  waves."— Philadelphia  iJ^f^rt/. 


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